september 12, 2012
Professionals
key TakeaWays
Mobile Banking optimization is a distant Reality For Many eBusiness Teams
Despite best intentions to apply continuous improvement processes to existing mobile sites and apps, many eBusiness teams face an array of distractions that prevent them from focusing on optimizing mobile banking. Leading the distractions is the need to divert customer experience and testing resources to the development of tablet experiences.
eBusiness Teams Must adapt a Two-Fold approach To Mobile optimization
Many eBusiness teams are optimizing mobile banking to align with newly assigned mobile KPIs. However, savvy eBusiness teams are hedging their bets by optimizing their existing sites and apps while simultaneously pushing the envelope of how mobile banking might redefi ne the fundamentals of their business models. successful Mobile optimization Requires an agile approach eBusiness professionals must establish a culture of rapid optimization that uses multiple feedback mechanisms. While social media reviews, web analytics, and usability labs will provide invaluable insights into what to optimize, automated testing will play a critical role in rapidly identifying what really works in the hands of consumers.
Why Read This RepoRT
Congratulations! Your mobile banking web, iPhone, iPad, and Android apps are live, and adoption has surpassed your wildest expectations. But what now? Digital banking teams need to test and optimize their existing mobile banking offerings to achieve business objectives and identify new ways to meet customers’ needs. This report is an adaptation of “Don’t Wait To Optimize Mobile Sites And Apps” originally
published July 28, 2011, and it forms part of the mobile banking strategy playbook. It discusses how digital banking teams must change gear from running mobile banking like a pilot to operating as a mature practice that focuses on optimizing the mobile banking experience and delivering against key performance indicators (KPIs).
Table Of Contents
Mobile Banking optimization is Far From Mature
sophisticated Mobile Banking Optimization Remains Elusive For Many
Forget What you Think you Know About Optimization: The Rules have Changed Mobile Banking optimization Requires Two parallel initiatives
Track 1: Master The Basics Track 2: Identify Ways To Innovate
RECOMMEndATIOns
Continuous improvement and Leading-edge innovation Must Coexist
supplemental Material
notes & Resources
We used data from Forrester’s Q4 2011 global Mobile Maturity Online survey.
Related Research documents
2012 Mobile Trends For eBusiness ProfessionalsMay 2, 2012
Mobile Mandate For eBusiness Professionals May 1, 2012
don’t Wait To Optimize Mobile sites And Apps
July 28, 2011
Continuous Improvement: The Mobile Banking strategy Playbook
by Joe stanhope and Peter sheldon
with Tiffani Montez, Benjamin Ensor, and Myriam da Costa
2
7
11 13
MoBiLe Banking opTiMizaTion is FaR FRoM MaTuRe
The mobile banking train is now running at full speed, yet this is just the beginning of the journey. With real dollars or euros now at stake and heightened consumer expectations for mobile banking, eBusiness professionals know they must optimize their portfolio of mobile sites and apps to deliver on business goals and customer experience. The opportunity to optimize and personalize the mobile banking experience around user context is overwhelming, but alas, few digital banking teams have established a framework for their approach.1 In fact, many banks are optimizing their mobile
banking portfolio using different tactics, feeding a deluge of suggested improvements from customers, stakeholders, divisions, and executives alike into a burgeoning product road map. What results is an arbitrary flow of features and experience enhancements. This idea and content was originally produced for customer intelligence professionals in Joe Stanhope’s report “Don’t Wait To Optimize Mobile Sites And Apps”; it is also important for eBusiness professionals because the challenges they face in optimizing and managing mobile banking sites and applications are the same.2
sophisticated Mobile Banking optimization Remains elusive For Many
Before eBusiness professionals can get serious about optimizing for mobile, they must first contend with a variety of challenges that fall into two main categories — organizational and technical. Organizational challenges include:
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Digital teams not being the sole owner of mobile. In many cases, eBusiness teams own themobile banking strategy, but few eBusiness teams have an exclusive mandate over their firm’s mobile banking initiatives. This division of responsibility creates silos and adds significant complexity to the coordination and optimization of mobile efforts. In fact, it is common to find mobile stakeholders from a diverse set of cross-functional business groups (see Figure 1). This fragmentation of responsibility is often exacerbated by the fact that many banks outsource certain elements of their mobile initiatives to external platform vendors and interactive agencies, often including mobile banking user experience design, development, and maintenance.
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Governance being required to align mobile stakeholder objectives. With so manystakeholders involved in mobile banking, eBusiness professionals must champion the establishment of mobile banking best practices and governance throughout the organization. A lot of thinking has to be incubated — product managers and teams new to mobile must now
think about mobile from the outset, and digital teams must promote this behavior. Failure to establish governance around mobile banking in larger cross-functional teams will result in groups that have little incentive to align around a consistent mobile banking experience.
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Tablet development diverting resources. In the rush to build tablet experiences, digitalteams are reassigning development resources, leaving little usability and development time free to optimize the existing suite of mobile apps and mobile websites. Mobile web and app experiences are already widely deployed, with more than seven out of 10 financial services
firms we surveyed already offering app experiences on the iPhone and six out of 10 offering them on Android.3 Support of tablet experiences is still nascent, but the situation is rapidly
changing. Approximately half of financial services firms we interviewed plan to develop either a tablet-optimized site or a tablet app in 2012.4
Technical hurdles include the facts that:
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Few digital teams apply testing to mobile channels. Although use of testing tools likeOmniture’s Test & Target is widespread on the Web, 23% of firms that test their website currently test their mobile website, and only 4% test their mobile apps.5 Testing is becoming
critical for eBusiness professionals to achieve their objectives: In fact, some 25% of eBusiness professionals stated that getting serious about testing was a top three priority for their mobile consumer strategy (see Figure 2). Instead of applying formal testing methodologies, most digital teams today are relying solely on serial measure-and-learn approaches, mining customer feedback from app store reviews, technical support calls, in-branch feedback, and Twitter. Furthermore, banks are running usability labs with end customers to drive the
optimization of their mobile suite. Monitoring this feedback is and should remain a priority for eBusiness professionals, but a well-rounded optimization strategy should balance quantitative and qualitative measures to uncover opportunities to enhance the mobile channel.
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Optimizing native apps remains a challenge. Forty-six percent of financial services firms wesurveyed have developed native apps as part of their mobile strategy.6 However, unlike with
the mobile web or hybrid apps, performing optimization testing on native applications comes with a significant overhead.7 Not only must tests be carefully defined upfront and supporting
code libraries embedded in the app, but significant redevelopment efforts are often required to act on the findings of a test. This constrains the flexibility that the testing teams have and ties up significant development resources, preventing teams from creating new functionality. Many eBusiness professionals tell us they are evaluating the merits of migrating to hybrid HTML5 apps primarily to give them more flexibility with optimization testing.
Figure 1 Ownership Of Mobile Banking Strategy Is Fragmented Today
Source: Forrester Research, Inc. 75592 eBusiness 79% Digital marketing 7% Corporate strategy 4% Marketing 4% Customer experience 2% Product development 2%
Other, please specify 2%
“Which of the following best describes the functional group that owns or drives your mobile consumer strategy for phones?”
(Select one)
Base: 48 eBusiness and channel strategy professionals at financial services firms Source: Q4 2011 Global Mobile Maturity Online Survey
Figure 2 Mobile Testing Is Important, But Not A Priority, For Many eBusiness Teams
Source: Forrester Research, Inc. 75592 2% 10% 10% 10% 17% 17% 23% 25% 35% 42% 52% 54%
Other, please specify Drive traffic/sales in other channels (e.g., physical stores) Increase brand awareness Reduce operating or marketing costs Generate direct revenue/sales completed by mobile phones Reach particular consumer segments Acquire new customers Test and learn Build loyalty Appear as innovative Improve customer satisfaction Increase customer engagement
Base: 48 eBusiness and channel strategy professionals at financial services firms (multiple responses accepted)
“What are your company’s top three priorities/objectives for mobile consumer strategy for phones?”
Forget What you Think you know about optimization: The Rules have Changed
eBusiness professionals may possess years of hard-earned wisdom and expertise with online banking and interactive marketing, but don’t assume that long-accepted conventions and standards from online banking will translate to mobile banking. The very nature of mobile devices — they’re highly personal and interactive, with a small form factor, tactile functionality, and context driven by location — requires a fresh look at all aspects of customer interaction. How can mobile optimization help drive digital sales and service? Savvy eBusiness professionals need to work with customer intelligence and customer experience professionals to evaluate:
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Customers’ intent. Screen size, mobility, and functionality drive mobile user scenarios thatoften differ from standard PC-Internet scenarios. Fixed-Internet websites can support a large variety of activities concurrently, but mobile must be much more focused. It is critical to determine how customers wish to interact with the bank through mobile devices and what, specifically, they want to accomplish in a mobile context.
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Products and features. With intent in mind, evaluate the depth to which users will interactwith mobile sites and applications. Many digital banking teams establish mobile websites and applications assuming that customers will use the site to check their balances. To validate this assumption, eBusiness professionals should test expanded product and functionality assortments to determine whether their initial assumptions about mobile hold true.
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Usability and design. Screen real estate is precious on mobile devices. Gather quantitativefeedback by testing the sizing and placement of content and functional elements. And don’t forget to evaluate the location of elements within the site or application, not just on single pages. A financial services firm found that using very explicit navigation cues — overkill by fixed-Internet standards — resulted in higher task-completion rates.
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Marketing opportunities. Mobile provides an opportunity to present targeted offers based oncontextual experiences that are driven by the situation, preferences, and attitudes of customers. As digital banking teams develop mobile marketing and cross-sell opportunities based on
mobile’s unique opportunities for time- and location-sensitive offers, those activities should also be carefully tested and optimized.
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How many apps to offer. Many banks struggle to decide whether to consolidate all theirfunctionality into one mobile banking app or to create unique apps to support certain products or activities. For example, banks can either integrate stock-trading functionality or person-to-person payments into existing mobile banking apps or develop a unique app. While this is largely a strategic decision, testing customers’ interactions via one “fat” app versus a “family” of separate apps can help determine whether functionality is better integrated into an existing mobile banking app or offered as a separate app — or both.
MoBiLe Banking opTiMizaTion ReQuiRes TWo paRaLLeL iniTiaTives
Creating engaging mobile websites and applications is both an art and a science that demands a structured, analytical approach. Banks setting out should, at a minimum, apply a serial test-and-learn testing methodology, releasing a single version of content and functionality, measuring the impact on KPIs, and developing subsequent enhancements based on the results. Banks with higher mobile traffic volumes can optimize faster by testing multiple content or functionality variations simultaneously using A/B and multivariate testing methods.8
Digital banking teams should implement a formal mobile banking optimization program that includes two parallel initiatives: mastering the basics of mobile banking interactions and capitalizing on the unique opportunities that mobile creates.
Track 1: Master The Basics
Building the basic framework for interacting with customers on mobile devices is the first job in developing mobile websites and applications. Optimizing for mobile devices significantly affects customers’ ability and willingness to interact with mobile websites and applications. But it takes more than accommodating smaller screens to build mobile-friendly sites and applications. Optimization programs that drive engaging mobile banking sites and applications should:
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Evaluate core design elements. To accommodate the mobile device form factor, evaluate thebasic elements of design, such as how content and functionality are laid out on the screen. Calculate the content weight so that download requirements do not overwhelm mobile network bandwidth, and ensure that all content is clear and legible in a variety of settings.
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Focus on usability. Usability testing ensures that customers can quickly find desired contentand functionality. How? Start by placing popular and critical elements on the home page or opening screen. Test page layouts for specific onscreen placement, the formatting of lists and search results, and the balance of text to graphics.
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Segment and target customers. Track mobile traffic to define customer segments based on thecustomers’ activities and characteristics, and put segmentation into action by delivering targeted content and functionality to those key groups.9 For example, if you’re targeting mobile website
visitors based on device operating system, location, and customer type, you can render content in appropriate formats for major devices, provide geographically tailored information, and offer specific functionality to customers.
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Align to overall strategic objectives. Although banks remain focused on traditional webmetrics, such as traffic, customer satisfaction, and volume of interactions, to optimize their mobile experiences, multichannel banks are developing other metrics, such as cross-channel interactions. For example, a leading financial institution has focused its optimization strategy around improving the 90-day active customer use across its suite of mobile and tablet
touchpoints. The bank is not obsessing about the conversion funnel of its mobile suite; instead, it has focused on growing awareness and adoption through multichannel marketing campaigns and reducing the startup time of its apps to foster repeat use.
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Optimize to meet business goals. Digital banking leaders tell us that for the most part theyhave completed the initial transposition of web functionality into relevant mobile banking experiences. Through the process of building mobile banking from a blank canvas, they have learned much about the digital needs of their customers and subsequently are applying this knowledge to their existing websites. With the groundwork done, digital banking teams are now turning their focus to optimizing the mobile banking experience to realize the goals on which they are now measured.
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Use existing mobile metrics to uncover optimization opportunities. Digital banking teamsare collecting increasingly sophisticated mobile banking metrics, but few teams fully grasp how to use these metrics in their mobile banking optimization strategy. Mobile analytics can provide valuable insights when undertaking optimization. For example, account application analytics can provide insights into where mobile users are abandoning their efforts, letting user experience teams refine the steps and flow in the process. Metrics alone will not provide all the answers on how and where to optimize, but they do provide valuable insights on where to start and, more importantly, what to test.
Track 2: identify Ways To innovate
Digital banking teams must not lose sight of the opportunity to improve today’s mobile banking experience. Beyond basic use of the smartphone camera for reading QR codes or remote deposit capture, most digital banking teams are barely scratching the surface of opportunity. Mobile banking optimization must therefore take into account more than just streamlining today’s mobile experiences and must also look at how to use mobile banking to optimize the entire business model. Digital banking leaders must unlock the strategic potential of mobile by:
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Divorcing themselves from their PC-based preconceptions. Breakthrough mobileexperiences will address customer pain points in ways that the PC can’t. As eBusiness professionals optimize mobile banking experiences and workflows, they must think outside the “PC box” through a deep understanding of the hardware and software capabilities of the phone platforms for which they are designing. Mobile banking experiences must take advantage of the new opportunities that these devices afford, such as device-specific shortcuts, click-to-call, motion detection, voice control, address book integration, push notifications and, most of all, location. For example, Citibank threw out its PC-based experience when designing its iPad app. The result? A tablet banking offering that went beyond the functionality and experience available to customers on Citi’s PC-based secure website, including integrated personal financial management (PFM) tools that are not available on its website.10
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Testing the potential of emerging technologies early. As new mobile handsets enter the market, eBusiness professionals should consider experimenting with mobile experiences that take advantage of new or evolving technologies, such as Near Field Communication (NFC), HTML5, augmented reality, voice recognition, 4G, or the retina display in the new iPad. Although the sample of consumers with compatible devices will be low, testing these technologies among early adopters will let digital banking teams test concepts with a discerning audience, then perfect the experience before adoption of the technology goes mainstream.■
Focusing on the unique attributes of each mobile platform. Metrics reveal that iPhone andAndroid users are not alike. As digital banking teams embark on their optimization tests, do not assume that what works on one mobile platform necessarily works for another. Run tests across platforms and validate them based on devices and customer demographics.
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Creating an innovation group. To keep up with the pace of change, eBusiness executivesshould consider open innovation initiatives, involving not only employees but customers; they should also open their mobile app to developers to create new sources of innovation. Banks like Bankinter, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo have created dedicated innovation labs where they test new or soon-to-be-released mobile banking concepts by soliciting feedback from customers (see Figure 3). Spain’s la Caixa organized a 24-hour FinAppsParty, during which participants competed to create new mobile banking applications.11 France’s Axa Banque
has opened its application programming interfaces (APIs) to developers, organized a retail banking innovation contest, and invited developers to pitch for a €50,000 prize (see Figure 4). This approach lets banks optimize new products and services before they hit the market, when changes are often more costly and harder to implement.
Figure 3 Wells Fargo Labs’ Innovation Group Provides Feedback On The Latest Ideas
Source: Forrester Research, Inc. 75592
Figure 4 Axa Banque Invited Developers To Compete In A €50,000 “Grand Prix” Challenge
R e c o m m e n d at i o n s
ConTinuous iMpRoveMenT and Leading-edge innovaTion MusT CoeXisT
Digital teams that take tentative approaches to mobile banking for fear of making mistakes or acting without complete information risk being overtaken by their competitors or new entrants from other sectors and being left behind as mobile banking and payments evolve. By continuously experimenting, organizations can deliver effective mobile websites and applications today while building an understanding of how mobile banking will redefine the way they engage with their customers tomorrow. Digital banking teams should:
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Iterate quickly. With mobile and tablet traffic now more than just a blip on the radar,eBusiness professionals can expect to develop insights quickly from experiments. Don’t be afraid to design and run multiple small tests simultaneously to yield incremental optimization improvements; however, be careful in your design and implementation to
Source: Forrester Research, Inc. 75592
avoid unintentional overlaps or effects across experiments. Furthermore, be careful with multivariate testing, as small device screens, which have the scale to display only a limited number of factors and variations, can limit the effectiveness of this testing technique.
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Balance qualitative and quantitative testing. Many eBusiness teams rely heavily onqualitative feedback to drive their mobile optimization strategy. App store ratings are critical for driving adoption, and mobile product managers take negative reviews very seriously. Furthermore, the eBusiness professionals we spoke with told us that they regularly undertake formal usability testing labs and beta trials with end customers. While qualitative testing is not without merit, eBusiness professionals must embrace quantitative testing of their mobile sites and apps if they are to establish a regime of continuous improvement. Running small and frequent tests with real customers allows mobile teams to quickly determine successful outcomes.
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Share optimization approaches across touchpoints. Where possible, create mobilevariations of productive experiments from other channels and touchpoints. Use the parallels between channels by using your fixed-Internet experience to guide the approach to mobile site optimization, and then use your mobile website experience to guide the optimization of mobile applications. Key events should be consistent across fixed websites, mobile websites, and mobile applications for consistent measurement and customer experiences.
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Optimize for individual devices. Mobile banking optimization is not a one-size-fits-allinitiative. On the contrary: Savvy eBusiness teams are optimizing for different devices. They understand that iPhone owners have different expectations from Android users and are tailoring the mobile banking experience accordingly. Firms supporting the long tail of the mobile device ecosystem like Windows Phone, BlackBerry, or Symbian should focus only on optimizing core use cases — unless, of course, the respective device manufacturers are incenting them to optimize these platforms.12
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Develop a governance process to align mobile stakeholder objectives. With so manystakeholders involved in mobile banking, eBusiness professionals must establish a governance process that fosters collaboration across functional teams, as well as product groups. For example, by establishing a center of excellence, a centralized team is responsible for governing, testing, and regulating mobile banking enhancements. Alignment across the organization will lead to the development of a consistent mobile banking experience across product groups.
suppLeMenTaL MaTeRiaL Methodology
Forrester fielded its Q4 2011 Global Mobile Maturity Online Survey to 245 professionals from our ongoing Marketing & Strategy Research Panel. The panel consists of volunteers who join on the basis of interest and familiarity with specific marketing and strategy topics. For quality assurance, panelists are required to provide contact information and answer basic questions about their firms’ revenue and budgets. Forrester fielded the survey from October 25 to December 10, 2011. Respondent incentives included a summary of the survey results. Exact sample sizes are provided in this report on a question-by-question basis. Panels are not guaranteed to be representative of the population. Unless otherwise noted, statistical data is intended to be used for descriptive and not inferential purposes.
endnoTes
1 For more information on building mobile experiences around consumer context, see the May 1, 2012, “The
Future Of Mobile eBusiness Is Context” report.
2 The drumbeat of mobile is increasingly difficult to ignore as usage and revenue gain momentum and
smartphones become tightly woven into multichannel customer experiences. But developing engaging mobile websites and applications requires more than scaling fixed-Internet websites down to fit small screens. Customer intelligence (CI) professionals must establish the basics of visitor intent, products and features, usability and design, and promotions to develop mobile websites and applications that are truly tuned for mobile functionality and customer expectations. Mobile is developing quickly, and organizations can’t afford to wait to build relevant mobile capabilities. To get started immediately, address mobile optimization in two stages: Develop the baseline mobile interaction model first, and then monetize mobile. See the July 28, 2011, “Don’t Wait To Optimize Mobile Sites And Apps [59452]) report.
3 Source: Q4 2011 Global Mobile Maturity Online Survey. 4 Source: Q4 2011 Global Mobile Maturity Online Survey.
5 For more on mobile testing trends, see the February 22, 2012, “The State Of Online Testing 2011” report. 6 Source: Q4 2011 Global Mobile Maturity Online Survey.
7 Source: Q4 2011 Global Mobile Maturity Online Survey.
8 A/B and multivariate testing offer faster learning by testing multiple content or functionality variations
simultaneously and providing insight into how factors interact with one another.
9 Best practices for measuring mobile websites are strongly rooted in traditional web analytics —
understanding traffic sources, on-site behavior, and obstacles that impede conversions. Best practices for measuring applications are based on evaluating task completion, functionality, and user experience. See the April 13, 2011, “Mobile Measurement Is A Customer Intelligence Imperative” report.
10 In July 2011, Citibank officially launched its first ever tablet banking app, but the true breakthrough took
place five months earlier, when eBusiness leaders at the bank began the process of developing a tablet banking strategy and building their first iPad app. The eBusiness leaders brought together a small project team of a dozen people from across the company and gave the tablet banking team a simple goal: to develop a tablet application that engaged customers and rated highly with them. The resulting tablet application has exceeded adoption of Citi’s smartphone applications, achieved high ratings among users, and resulted in lessons that are being shared with other digital banking touchpoints. See the January 19, 2012, “Case Study: Citibank’s Tablet App Transforms The Digital Banking Experience” report.
11 La Caixa organized the first FinAppsParty in Barcelona in November 2011. The 24-hour event attracted
more than 100 developers and resulted in 40 proposals for different applications.
12 Microsoft is reported to have subsidized the development and porting of popular Apple iOS and Android
apps to Windows Phone to promote the depth of apps in the Windows Phone marketplace. Source: Dan Rowinski, “The Application Island: Gaining Mobile Development Mindshare,” ReadWriteWeb, November 28, 2011 (http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2011/11/the-application-island-gaining.php).
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