Work/ATB FinancialCase study · 2017–2018

A map of every moment banking takes effort

ATB Financial, through Huge: an experience map and service framework of ATB’s self‑service banking, rooted in call‑centre data, analytics and interviews, and built as a tool the bank could keep running after we left.

The full ATB experience map: service phases across the top, customer activity swim lanes by effort, frontstage, backstage and support lanes, pain points, issue frequency bubbles and insights
Client
ATB Financial, Alberta
Agency
Huge
Role
Experience and service design
Dates
August 2017 – 2018
Output
Experience map and service framework, templates and assets, sub‑journeys, enablement for ATB’s insights team
01The problem

A bank’s customers don’t experience a web team, an app team, a branch and a call centre. They experience one bank, and when something simple goes wrong online, they phone.

ATB wanted to make its products and services easier and happier to use, and to keep disrupting them. What it had was a set of issues that looked unrelated at the interface, each owned by a different team, and a call centre absorbing the effort that self‑service was supposed to remove. One activity, resetting a PIN, was 18,405 calls on its own.

  1. Many sources, no single picture. Call‑support data, site and app analytics, front‑of‑house and back‑of‑house teams each held part of the story.
  2. Effort is the measure. The goal was not a prettier screen but fewer tasks that need more customer effort than they should.
  3. It had to outlive the engagement. A deliverable that stopped being true the week after hand‑off would be worth nothing.
02Three decisions
  1. 1

    Map the service, not the screens.

    The map runs the customer’s service phases across the top, Discover to Upgrade or Deactivate, and stacks four bands beneath them: customer activities in low‑, medium‑ and high‑effort swim lanes plus non‑ATB disruptors; services and operations split by the line of interaction and the line of visibility into frontstage, backstage and support processes; numbered pain points colour‑coded by their systemic cause; and issue frequency with qualitative insight. Reading a column top to bottom shows not just the interface failure but whether it comes from the interface, the systems and processes, or governance.

    Turned down: a journey map per channel. It would have reproduced the org chart that caused the problem.

  2. 2

    Root every pain point in data.

    Nothing went on the map on opinion. Call‑support and service data and site and app analytics validate or refute each low‑effort failure; interviews with CSRs, personal bankers and relationship managers, and with banking operations and process management, supply the why. Issue frequency sits directly under the activity it belongs to, so a candidate for prioritisation carries its evidence with it.

    Turned down: a map built from workshops alone. Sticky notes started it; they could not be allowed to finish it.

  3. 3

    Build a tool, hand over the keys.

    Phase one lives in RealtimeBoard, a collaborative whiteboard that already sat alongside Google Docs, Creative Cloud and Sketch at ATB: templates for new maps and sub‑journeys, the full asset kit, elements linked across boards and out to data sources and interview recordings. ATB’s insights team were named authors, with core activities for maintaining the map, adding data, generating journeys and identifying failures.

    Turned down: a poster and a PDF. The map is only valuable while it is true, and only the bank can keep it true.

03The work
The working wall: pre-service, during-service and post-service columns of sticky notes
Where it started. The anatomy of the map worked out on a wall: phases across, effort lanes down, before any of it went digital.
The map structure annotated: service phases, customer activities, services and operations, pain points, incident frequency and qualitative insights
The structure. Four bands, read top to bottom in any column.
Six details of the map: service phases, customer activity swim lanes, services and operations, pain points, issue frequency, insights
The six lanes, up close. Effort‑tiered activities, frontstage and backstage operations, pain points coded by systemic cause, frequency and insight.
Correlations read vertically across the four bands, and the pyramid of systemic layers: interface, systems and processes, governance
Why vertical. Correlations run down the column, from an interface symptom to a systems or governance cause.
Four things the map will do: optimise failing low-effort solutions, consolidate and prioritise initiatives, drive innovation, identify emerging disrupters
What the map is for. Fix failing low‑effort paths, consolidate issues that share a cause, free high‑effort channels for high‑value calls, and watch the disruptors.
What is included: templates, the asset kit, linked elements and linked boards
The kit. Templates, assets, linked elements, linked boards and links out to data and interview files, so the map can grow sub‑journeys without a designer in the room.
Enablement pages: maintaining the map, adding new data with call volumes, finding moments to dig deeper, identifying issues
Enablement. Maintaining the map, adding data as it arrives, finding the moments to dig deeper, identifying issues worth prioritising.
Two customer journey strips: a top-level journey from Check Balance to ABM Withdrawal, and a Pay Bills sub-journey from Sign In to Sign Out
From map to journey. A top‑level journey, Check Balance to ABM Withdrawal, and the Pay Bills sub‑journey generated from it, Sign In to Sign Out, each step with its need and resolution.
Three themes: education and training, consistent experience, integrated systems
What the first map said. Beyond the tactical fixes, three themes the pain points ladder up to: education and training, a consistent experience across employee entitlements and UI, and integrated systems.
04Where it landed
  • DeliveredThe ATB Experience Map and Service Framework, phase one, in RealtimeBoard, with templates, assets and the first sub‑journeys
  • EvidenceCall‑support and service data, site and mobile analytics, and interviews with front‑of‑house and back‑of‑house teams, tied activity by activity to the map
  • Handed overATB’s insights team as authors, with the enablement sessions and next steps on data standardisation and prioritisation criteria
05My role

I was the experience designer on the Huge team for the map: the framework and its anatomy, the RealtimeBoard build with its templates and assets, the sub‑journeys, and the enablement material for ATB’s insights team. ATB’s research, analytics and front‑ and back‑of‑house teams supplied the evidence; the Huge team shaped it into something the bank could run.