Petal, 2023
Streamlining Settlement Offers
As a Senior Product Designer at the credit card startup Petal, I led a project aimed at reducing delinquent accounts. Working closely with cross-functional teams in product and tech, I designed a streamlined in-app experience that offered settlement options to late-stage delinquent members. This initiative contributed to a 5% decrease in delinquencies within its first quarter.
Before this project, our Risk team manually ran settlement offer campaigns through email or physical mail, which required members to rely on customer service for support, causing unnecessary friction. Our goal was to automate and simplify the process to improve user engagement.
In line with our company-wide goal for 2023 of sustaining a month-over-month reduction in delinquency rates, I partnered with product teams to define projects that would have the greatest impact. As a result, creating an automated, in-app settlement offer experience became our top priority at the start of the year.
Objective
At the start of the project, the product manager and I used our product sense to collaboratively define what success would look like. These benchmarks included:
Automated campaign execution: Develop a solution that streamlines the settlement offer process, reducing manual effort and saving time.
Decreased enrollment friction: Allow users to easily respond to offers within the app, eliminating the need for external communication channels
Establish performance metrics: Implement in-app tracking capabilities to measure and benchmark the performance of settlement programs.
Research
Together, we mapped out when and how users would receive settlement offers. Given the compliance constraints, we maintained the existing delinquency bucket structure (30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 150 days delinquent). Users already behind on payments at the time of rollout were placed into the appropriate delinquency group.
Coming off a previous project where I developed an in-app account notice template, I recognized the opportunity to apply similar user-friendly principles. Given our tight timeline and the likelihood that delinquent users were not frequently engaging with the app, we needed to create a solution that would immediately capture attention and offer quick paths to resolution. My prior work on the account notice experience provided a perfect foundation.
Account Notice template I created before working on Settlement Offers.
Ideation
We began by focusing on messaging. Settlement offers were sent via email and push notifications once a user reached 30 days delinquent and continued as they progressed through later buckets. Members who were already behind received notifications aligned with their current delinquency stage. For example, someone already 90 days overdue was immediately placed in the 90-day bucket. When a user reached 173 days overdue (one week before account charge-off at 180 days), a final reminder was sent to inform them they had seven days to accept the offer.
Next, we tackled the in-app display of settlement offers using the account notice template. To manage the schedule efficiently, we split the rollout into two phases. Phase 1 involved alerting users to the percentage discount on their settlement offer, with a CTA to contact support. In Phase 2, we’d display the actual settlement amount and introduce a measurable self-service option within the app.
While designing, I explored different ways to present the settlement offer using existing components from the account notice template.
Exploration of different concepts to convey Settlement Offers in app.
Final Designs
The final Phase 1 designs were simple yet effective, using clear messaging and a strong visual hierarchy with dynamic colors to draw attention to the offer’s benefits.
Final designs for phases 1 and 2 of the Settlement Offers experience.
Implementation
I worked quickly to deliver mockups for both phases, ensuring we met our goal of launching by Q2. Throughout the process, I collaborated with the product manager to address edge cases, such as overlapping notices and notices for closed accounts. I documented all these scenarios in Figma and coordinated closely with engineers, running design QA on tickets to ensure smooth implementation.
Final designs documented in Figma.
Results
The settlement offers launched on schedule at the start of Q2, targeting 52,000 delinquent accounts. We saw a 5% enrollment rate from the in-app experience. These positive results confirmed that streamlining the settlement process made users slightly more likely to accept offers, ultimately helping us meet our goal of reducing delinquencies. Additionally, this project laid the groundwork for further automation, saving time for both users and our CX team.
Data indicated our streamlined Settlement Offers experience yielded positive results.
Conclusion
This project really showed me the impact user-centered design can have on business outcomes. By simplifying the settlement process and reducing friction, we were able to make a real difference, both for the users and for the company. I learned the value of balancing user needs with business goals, and how important collaboration across teams is for delivering results.