candi Solar is a dedicated commercial, and industrial rooftop solar solution installer, financier, and operator geared towards SME’s, family-owned businesses, and schools across Asia and Africa. With an affordable payment model, short contract period, and easy installation/ de-installation, they leverage the vast untapped rooftop potential in these underserved sectors to free up capital for SMEs by lowering their effective power price.
Recognising that sales agents were making false promises about the product in order to make a sale, candi approached us to design a short video for their third-party channel partners and sales representatives to present to potential customers. They needed a fool-proof video that could streamline the sales process by clearly and accurately explaining the solution and its benefits to prospective clients.
“The demonstrative and visual approach of the video also avoids any potential language barriers by aiding comprehension for a predominantly semi-English speaking customer base.”
We created a short, illustrative video that combines text, animated graphs and graphics, and drone footage to clearly highlight candi Solar’s unique offerings. The demonstrative and visual approach of the video also avoids any potential language barriers by aiding comprehension for a predominantly semi-English speaking customer base. Accompanied by an explanatory voice-over, the video serves the purpose of being transparent, informative, and easy to understand.
Now Form works cross-functionally with SBI Card’s Marketing, Digital, Business, and IT team to design their customer-facing website. Through primary and secondary research, including trend analysis, benchmarking, and analysis of their existing digital assets, we identify and create new strategies and interventions for their B2C and B2B flows.
In acknowledgement of our work, SBI Card also approached us to create a new visual language and experience for their website as part of a larger digital transformation. Based on our comprehensive research of digital and industry trends, we’ve redefined several journeys, including their pre-login card application, first-time user registration, and onboarding experiences.
Notably, we also designed the UX and interface of their new Chatbot ILA, which is amongst the most advanced banking chatbots in India and internationally.
Our Approach
Our team uses a range of UX tools to get a comprehensive understanding of the scope and requirements of SBI Card’s digital assets and user needs. Through UX processes like competitive research, benchmarking, A/B testing, and rapid prototyping workshops, we can make informed decisions towards identifying and co-creating more resilient solutions.
A/B testing– Use case one: Segregated fields into collapsible sections to contextualise stages of the flow and reduce scrolling; Use case two: Upfront input fields under a single section feels lengthier, requiring additional scrolling.Through rapid prototyping, we collaboratively establish the experience and content structures
Understanding the global banking landscape
Through our research, we learned that traditional online banking services are rapidly being redefined from money management platforms to 360 social payment platforms. Using AI, they are also focusing on customising user experiences and making websites more dynamic. Additionally, recognizing the growing needs of Millennial and Gen Z populations, banks like Bank of America, Santander and DBS leverage dedicated content hubs and tools for financial advice and management to address this demographic.
As part of our research, we identified key digital innovations that have been implemented across Banking and Financial Services.
Our research continues to inform SBI Card, and our approach to new journeys on the website. Based on our documented research, we have designed several new features, including a two-factor authentication journey or a secure login experience and a more robust spend analysis tool accessible through SBI Card’s chatbot, ILA. The research has also informed our strategy behind the revamp of their UI and experience, helping identify emerging technology and global banking trends to enhance their virtual presence.
Based on our study of general UI and UX trends and digital and tech innovations in BFSI, we identified ways in which SBI Card can improve their digital touch-points.
SBI Card 2.0
Our new visual language for SBI Card abandons traditional, dated banking UI for a more clean and contemporary look and feel, displaying full-screen content and less dense layouts to keep important information in focus. The new UI also focuses on providing users with more personalised, interactive, and mobile-friendly experiences. Playful illustrations, transitions, and pared-back interfaces simplify navigation and help increase engagement.
“The use of personified guides featuring women, men, and gender-neutral characters illustrate the narrative of a user’s journey, humanise the interface, and create moments of playfulness in otherwise lengthy flows.”
The use of personified guides featuring women, men, and gender-neutral characters illustrate the narrative of a user’s journey, humanise the interface, and create moments of playfulness in otherwise lengthy flows.
As part of their ongoing transformation, we have redefined several key flows on the website:
New user registration and digital onboarding: Our team redesigned the digital registration and onboarding of first-time SBI Card customers. To reduce high drop-off rates, we created a more engaging onboarding experience featuring micro-animations, dynamic visual content and progress trackers that help simplify the experience and motivate users to complete the journey.
“To reduce high drop-off rates, we created a more engaging onboarding experience featuring micro-animations, dynamic visual content, and progress trackers that help simplify the experience and motivate users to complete the journey.”
Online Card Application: Our redesigned card application form helped digitise the entire process of applying for an SBI Card credit card online. Previously, prospective customers could initiate a new card application on the website. However, to complete the process and procure any necessary documentation, an SBI Card executive had to manually reach out to customers and schedule a visit, thus breaking the journey by taking it offline.
“Our solution allows customers to complete the entire application process and upload supporting documents online, reducing human intervention and therefore, costs, as well as facilitating faster processing times.”
The customer is only required to provide a physical signature for which they can schedule an appointment online for the SBI Card’s executive to visit.
Our solution allows customers to complete the entire application process and upload supporting documents online, reducing human intervention and therefore, costs, as well as facilitating faster processing times. In case human intervention is required, a customer can easily schedule an appointment within the flow, eliminating the need to exit the application process mid-way. The redesigned form also accommodates additional benefits such as add-on cards and standardised cross-selling.
Rewards: We redesigned SBI Card’s rewards experience; The previous interface deviated from a standard e-commerce experience making it difficult for users to seamlessly spend and purchase. Our solution, designed with the end-user in mind, is more buying-focused. The new interface includes intuitive shop-friendly filters, a seamless mini cart, add-to-cart functionality, and a structured interior product and voucher page that clearly communicates relevant features, information, and supports video content to better showcase products.
“Our solution, designed with the end-user in mind, is more buying-focused.”
Clickable categories are positioned at the top of the page for quick and easy filtration, and a scrollable grid of promotional banners highlights featured offers for users to quickly explore and save. The new journey makes it easier for customers to search, set goals, and redeem rewards with available payment and redemption options, displayed up front.
Designing B2B and B2C journeys for the existing website:
Now Form works on customer flows and B2B portals for SBI Card’s existing website. We work on the tonality, architecture, and implementation of digital strategies and interventions based on our research of industry trends, as well as on focused benchmarking for the functionalities we tackle.
We work on customer-facing interfaces ranging across various stages of an SBI Card user’s online banking experience. Some of the flows we have designed include:
Virtual Card: SBI Card’s virtual credit card or “Insta-card” is an intermediary digital card that allows new cardholders to make transactions, view card details, and get an overview of available features before they receive their physical card. We designed the overall experience and content architecture, including digital representations of their horizontal and vertical cards.
Insta-card, an intermediary digital card, allows new card-holders to instantly make transactions and view their card details and features even before receiving a physical card.
Two Factor Authentication: Although transactions are made secure through an OTP, other sensitive financial information remains accessible through a simple (less secure) login. Our two-factor authentication design, which includes intuitively placed smart options, made the overall banking experience more secure for users.
Our two-factor authentication design made the overall banking experience more secure. We made the experience more dynamic by including intuitive smart options.
Card and wallet limits: We designed a journey to allow users to manage their Card and Digital Wallet spend limits online. Through this, users can see an overview (dashboard) of their limits, as well as modify and manage individual limits. Our solution mainly comprises toggles and sliders to help users visualise and edit limits with ease.
Our solution for setting Card and Wallet limits comprises mainly of toggles and sliders to help users visualize and modify the values with ease.
Online dispute management for fraudulent charges: Our online Dispute Management solution streamlines the process of raising disputes on fraudulent charges. Before this, the experience was primarily offline and tedious. Our solution helps users raise multiple disputes quickly and with ease and track real-time progress on a timeline.
We also work on SBI Card’s external B2B flows and portals, for businesses to manage their financial transactions and communications with vendors. Some of the B2B journeys we have designed for SBI Card are:
By digitising SBI Card’s dispute management journey, we helped streamline the process. Our solution helps users raise multiple disputes quickly and with ease and track real-time progress on a timeline.
OnUS, a B2B online dispute management portal: OnUS is a B2B portal that enables the card issuer, SBI Card, to file a dispute directly to the merchant and overturn a fraudulent or accidental transaction on the cardholder’s behalf. Our solution helps facilitate simple back and forth interaction, providing a chronological history of the communication and the supporting documentation shared between SBI Card and the merchant.
A merchant can enter into the process of representment simply by raising dispute online and providing supporting documents.
D2i, a payment processing portal for businesses: Designed to cater to three distinct users, the D2i portal streamlines the processes of creating and managing payment instructions for multiple vendors online. We worked closely with the SBI Card marketing and tech teams to identify the steps for each user through rapid prototyping. Our solution allows businesses to systematically execute the entire journey directly through the portal, including adding vendors, creating and editing payment instructions, and accommodating multiple levels of validation and approvals on these instructions, making the process more seamless.
The list of all the payments is shown in a tabular format that is categorised into sections providing ease of access to the required set of data.
ILA, a transactional AI-powered banking chatbot
Now Form designed SBI Card’s new Chatbot, ILA. ILA’s goal is to give users access to pre-login and post-login assistance on their SBI Card account information and financial tasks. It is amongst the most advanced chatbots of any banking website as, unlike other chatbots, it is capable of handling transactional commands and complex post-login functionalities within the chat window. Using natural language, users can access advanced features including EMI conversions, balance transfer options, raising and tracking service requests, applying for a new card, and blocking and reissuing a lost or stolen card, among other account management options.
Our interface structure for ILA drew on familiar, conversational paradigms and queues; We included timestamps, feedback icons, and “typing” loaders to provide contextual indicators.
“Using natural language, users can access advanced features including EMI conversions, balance transfer options, raising and tracking service requests, applying for a new card, and blocking and reissuing a lost or stolen card, among other account management options.”
Our role involved shaping the overall visual language and pattern library for ILA. We adopted a contemporary UI approach with a simple interface, micro-interactions, customised iconography, and linear, frictionless flows.
Through benchmarking (secondary research), we reviewed chatbots and financial websites to gain a better understanding of the existing landscape and identify best practices and patterns for conversational interfaces. We also created high-level flow charts to help define basic conversational modules, message types, and conditional logic.
Designing a conversational interface: We designed the interface and patterns for ILA, drawing on familiar visual paradigms and conversational queues. For instance, we included timestamps, feedback icons, and “typing” loaders to provide familiar contextual indicators to users. We also implemented response buttons, in-text links, and a menu of primary actions to ease navigation and afford simple and straightforward actions.
We created UI provisions to efficiently convey a variety of content types (such as video, image, illustration).A short welcome message, clear CTAs and quick-links, and a menu of primary-actions help to set expectations, ease navigation, and afford simple and straightforward actions.We made the live-chat experience easily discernible for users through transitions, modified inputs, and the inclusion of an avatar and agent name on the timestamp.Patterns such as expandable points breaks-up long, text-only responses into parsable chunks to avoid overwhelming users with lengthy text.
Our team at Now Form has taken new and varied approaches to redesign SBI Card’s existing web journeys for a chat interface. For example, in place of tabular account summaries, we used descriptive phrases placed contextually beside account details to maintain a consistent, conversational tone and allow users to parse through information in a readable flow. For complex actions such as EMI conversions and balance transfer options, overlays within the chat window help keep the conversation focused, remove distractions, and avoid drop-offs on lengthy flows. We also designed the experience for a Live Agent Chat within ILA. The use of seamless transitions, a modified input field, and the inclusion of an avatar and agent name on the timestamp help make the two experiences easily discernible for users.
Spend Analysis: SBI Card approached us to design a more robust spend analysis tool accessible through the chatbot. Our solution helps users easily manage and track when and where they’ve spent their money. Through machine learning and AI, the interface automatically organises a user’s credit card transactions into colour-coded categories like Travel, Health, Utility, Electronics, Entertainment, and more, accompanied by distinct icons for each. Quick summaries are accessible within the conversation itself while more complex data takes users into an overlay-view, with information neatly organised into filtered tabs for easy access and comparison. Daily, weekly and monthly overviews and category-wise spend breakups, dynamic graphs, and clear, conversational labels allow users to visualise their spending habits easily.
Our solution helps users easily visualise and track when and where they’ve spent their money.
Quick summaries are accessible within the conversation itself while more complex data takes users into an overlay-viewThrough machine learning and AI, the interface organises a user’s credit card transactions into colour-coded categories accompanied by icons for each
“Since its launch, SBI Card has been able to replace their first-line customer support with ILA, addressing over 23 million queries and receiving over 25 thousand service requests booked using ILA.”
Business impact: Since its launch, SBI Card has been able to replace their first-line customer support with ILA, addressing over 23 million queries and receiving over 25 thousand service requests booked using ILA. The integration of ILA with the SBI Card app has also seen a 7x increase in average daily users and 8x increase in average daily questions asked by users. Adoption of the conversational AI solution has helped SBI Card acquire over 130 thousand leads, resulting in revenue growth of thousands of dollars.
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