Innovation for more client satisfaction: Case study with volt by Vontobel

Digital Investing
15/02/2023 de Dominic Bühler, Philipp Kraus Temps de lecture: 3 minute(s)
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Innovation is a key element in the development of digital investment solutions. The team behind volt by Vontobel has successfully combined innovation and client centricity to create a valuable feature that enables a better understanding of our clients' personal portfolio performance.

For some investors, it can be difficult to interpret the figures in their portfolio. Consequently, not everyone has enough information in their portfolio to make the right investment choices. Therefore, the question arises: What can providers of digital investment solutions do to give their clients more confidence in managing their own portfolios? So far, there has been a lack of concepts on how to assist investors in any situation within a digital investment solution. At Vontobel, we want to go one step further and use the possibilities of digital products to give our clients an understandable and simple overview of the performance of their personal portfolio.

An interdisciplinary team consisting of UX designers, product owners, software developers and product managers took on the task of finding the answers to the following questions and implementing them digitally:

  • Does it need more in a digital solution than just the performance figures in order for the client to assess the current portfolio and market situation?
  • How is the performance communicated in a traditional advisory meeting with clients? And which aspects can be transferred to volt?

  

The solution? Lies in the hands of the client.

In the first step, the volt team invited existing customers to participate in video interviews. Part of these clients were initially interviewed in order to confirm or refute possible theses.

During these interviews, it quickly became clear that volt clients mostly want to invest over a longer period of time and are willing to overlook short-term losses. At the same time, client advisors for our traditional wealth management mandates were asked how they explain the portfolio performance to clients. These findings led to the idea of a "performance analysis" feature in the volt app, for which a first prototype was created.

As a next step, interviews were conducted again with clients, who tested the prototype and were able to provide valuable feedback. With this input, the volt team has developed the final version of the "Performance Analysis", which is now available in the volt app since October 2022.

  

The Performance Analysis in volt

  • Portfolio-Performance

    Clients can now see at a glance how performance was generated and how their choice of themes influenced it. This helps clients to better understand the performance of the portfolio and make the best long-term decisions.

  • Market Development

    This view shows the broader market development based on general indices and their YTD performance. Clients can thus gain an overall impression of the market environment and put their portfolio performance into context.

  • Market Simulation

    The simulation of past market turbulences shows how one's own portfolio would have developed during historical financial market crises. It takes into account the currently selected portfolio composition.

  

From the idea to the finished product

After the rollout of our performance analysis, we decided to collect client feedback one more time. After all, the new feature should not only be understandable and offer added value, but also increase client satisfaction. For this purpose, we used a survey tool in the app. As soon as the performance analysis feature was opened and closed, the survey appeared. The result? 94% of customers gave the new feature at least 4 out of 5 stars.

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  • What do these results mean for our product?

    When it comes to financial products, simplicity and comprehensibility are important so that clients can understand even complex topics such as their personal performance composition. The results of the survey clearly show that the Performance Analysis feature provides clients with the right tools to better understand and rank their portfolio. This enables our clients to gain a better understanding of which market developments affect their performance and how, allowing them to take these insights into account in their personal investment strategy.

  

Mission accomplished.

Digital investment solutions offer numerous opportunities, and just as many new challenges. Every client builds their own portfolio according to their own wishes and interests. Accordingly, personalized explanations for portfolio performance are needed so that each person can classify their portfolio in an overall market context. Therefore, digital providers must take into account the individual needs of clients - just as they do in the case of a classic wealth management mandate.

In this case, we were able to achieve our goal through interdisciplinary collaboration across different areas, as well as the close involvement of our clients throughout the design and development process. However, the mission of " client satisfaction" is far from finished for us, but rather remains an integral part of our development process. Our clients will continue to be in the center of our offering.

  

volt by Vontobel is currently only available in Switzerland, Germany, South Africa and Mexico - digital onboarding only for people with main residence in Switzerland. People with main residence outside Switzerland can onboard by contacting our service team.