about
the project
CRED is a FinTech Service that allows users to manage their credit cards, pay bills, earn rewards and much more.
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In this project, I break down CRED's service journey, both from a business as well as customer point of view. I then use multiple frameworks and try to identify points of friction that could be improved for a better service experience.
CRED's Service Framework
Modality
CRED delivers a continuous service because the app constantly manages and updates information basis the user's interaction with it. Moreover, it is tied into other types of services and touchpoints too.
Diversity
The service is heterogenous because it’s unique to CRED and cannot be replicated. Surely there are competitors that provide part of the services as well and are mutually exclusive of one another.
Temporality
CRED offers services that are both active and passive. But overall, it would have to be an active service because it cannot really take shape without the user's constantly interaction.
Complexity
It is an extremely high complexity experience as there are plenty touchpoints and verticals that form the complete experience. A user navigates through multiple blocks of information and services in order to make their financial tracking and planning easier.
Interaction
A customer's interaction with CRED's services is a Technology-Enhanced Person-to-Person. The app works as the main facilitator of the service. It is also a Self-Service interaction because CRED uses technology to enhance and market the service.
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Value Exchange
Visualisation
This framework reveals the 5 major stakeholders that co-create value in CRED's service delivery. The arrows define the exchange of value between any 2 stakeholders by giving a glimpse into what they might expect.
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From the framework, we can infer that this service is complex as well as diverse. We can also infer that there is a heavy dependance on technology in extracting value in every interaction.
A reductive user journey is as follows:
Add Card
Manage
Card
Pay Dues
Earn
Rewards
Problem Framing
Canvas
This framework uncovers the customer pain points in the Onboarding -> Shopping journey. I empathized with the customer's feelings and pains in every step of their journey. I also listed out the different touchpoints that they interact with through this journey.
This allowed me to start thinking about user needs and map an ‘ideal’ service.
Potential Problems
The Shop section of the app is confusing and overwhelming.
There are two categories - Store and Travel. A lot of the products and offers are either too irrelevant for me or has a super complicated UX and Architecture for me to actually find something useful. There are essentially a bunch of randomly organized product categories and I have no control over what I see.
It feels like CRED is forcing product recommendations on me versus the other way around. It is crucial that the user is able to seamlessly complete the entire journey without any frustrations or pain points. If one is not able to have a good experience shopping on CRED, they are most likely to stop using the service altogether because it will become a frustrating and meaningless endeavour.
Stakeholder Map
With this framework, I was able to pinpoint the stakeholders within the company who would be involved in this project. This 2 x 2 illustrates the different categories of stakeholder involvement, influence and management to set the right expectations at the start of the project.
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This was extremely crucial because working closely with a UX Researcher, for example, is far more critical than a UI Designer.
Service Blueprint
This current state blueprint gives a detailed breakdown of CRED's Onboarding -> Shopping service. You can clearly see what the customer and system are doing at each stage of the journey.
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We can quickly see that majority of the pain points arise when users are finding and choosing products to buy. This helps in understanding the areas where we must conduct research.
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Fronstage interactions where user starts to explore the ‘Shop’ section in the app.
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Frontstage interaction where user is exploring and interacting with product categories.
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Backstage interaction where the system loads relevant shop data and deals.
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Mapping user needs and pain points while shopping for exclusive deals.
Research Plan
In order to improve the experience of discovering and buying products on the CRED App, I have put together the following research plan. This proposed plan would help me understand all perspectives from multiple stakeholders.
