Customer Success

"Before we started working with iRise, building complex online financial systems was a time-consuming, risky and pressure-filled proposition. Because we can rapidly generate highly interactive, life-like simulations in iRise, we're able to get developers and stakeholders on the same page. Using iRise is mission-critical for us – it brings the threshold for usability testing way down, translating to Web sites that our customers have found to be really intuitive."

– Carter Hansen, SVP of User Centered Design, eCommerce Division, Wachovia Corporation

Background
The nation's fourth largest bank holding company with more than $700B in assets under management, Wachovia Corporation is a diversified financial services company that has built its business on relationships and trust.

Challenge
Wachovia's eCommerce division was tasked with defining and developing a new online banking product suite that would help cut contact center costs through enhanced usability – leading to increased customer satisfaction and retention.

Result
Wachovia used iRise to simulate the new product suite, which included applications such as credit card acquisition, alternate online funding and a wholesale portal – before any development. Wachovia's user centered design team presented the visual, interactive simulations directly to bank customers to quickly test the new online applications, enabling more comprehensive, proactive usability testing. The rapid, iterative simulation process led to a dramatic improvement in the team's ability to execute in short turnaround times.

Upon launching the new Web-based services, Wachovia saw its customer support contact rate plummet by 58%, reducing call center contacts related to usability from 40% to 17% while at the same time improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.