Autosave Goals

Chase

Autosave (or automatic transfers from a checking to a savings account) had been piloted successfully in the Finn app before it was ported over to Chase in 2019.

With Autosave rules firmly in place and very well-received, it was time for phase two.

Challenge

Our goal was to help users create and manage savings goals, pair them with Autosave rules, and see how much they’ve saved so far. They also had to be able to choose how much money to keep in their checking account at all times, to avoid overdrafting.

On the business side, we needed to build an MVP on Web, iOS and Android, on top of the existing Autosave framework. The product had to drive Autosave enrollment and increase savings deposits.

Goals were also a way for Chase to learn more about customers’ priorities (i.e., deepen and broaden customer engagement), so we could surface relevant information in the future.

Solution

We let users create safety net and custom goals within their savings account. They could name their goals, as well as add target amounts, end dates and unique tags. Depending on the information, we surfaced numbers-based insights.

We built a dashboard and goal detail pages so users could manage and edit their goals, and we showed how much had been saved so far.

Research

We learned that users are looking for guidance on how they should allocate money across simultaneous financial objectives—things like paying down debt, building up a safety net, and investing.

For example, users wanted insights specific to their unique situation (“If I have X loans and debt, Y savings, and Z in my 401k, how much of my monthly income should I put toward each?”).

They were willing to share more personal details with Chase—such as employment changes, large upcoming purchases, or future plans around family or education—but only if the financial advice they received in return was “worth it.”

Users found it helpful to have even purely mathematical guidance (“If you add X a month to this goal, you’ll be on track to have Y by 2030.”)

But people were also—rightly so—hyper-aware of Chase’s business model, and were primed to be skeptical of our recommendations. For that reason, we always aimed to “show the work” or “show the math” where possible.

Safety Net

Users can create one of three goals. The safety net has prime real estate at the top, as it was the bank’s #1 priority.

One major pain point: Based on a single piece of research data, it had been decided that we should avoid the term “Autosave rules,” as it might come across as too stringent. This was a departure not only from existing Autosave messaging, but from previous Finn research, as well. This decision had repercussions across the app, particularly on the dashboard, and is why Autosave rules were repositioned as a “general savings” goal.

There’s currently work in progress to separate goals and Autosave rules at this juncture, to better align with customer mental models.

The main message and primary CTA was to encourage people to save a few months of expenses.

If they already knew how much they wanted to save, they could skip the math and tell us their own amount.

There were design component limitations for this screen, but we wanted to give the effect of a math equation.

We also present an insight at the bottom of the screen, to reinforce the idea shown previously about how much a typical safety net should hold.

Chase financial advisors actually recommended 9 months’ savings, but in research, this was a complete turn off for the average consumer, and made us look very out of touch.

Since there was a reason a user didn’t want to do the math for their safety net, we went with a different insight that leveraged the idea of flexibility and starting small—you shouldn’t feel paralyzed by the blank text field.

As long as you started saving, that was a win for us and the customer.

Since there was a reason a user didn’t want to do the math for their safety net, we went with a different insight that leveraged the idea of flexibility and starting small—you shouldn’t feel paralyzed by the blank text field.

As long as you started saving, that was a win for us and the customer.

This was the existing flow to set up an Autosave rule, with updated language.

For example, we used the word “transfer” instead of the more obvious “save.” This decision cut down on tech work, since it made this screen usable for savings and investing users (those who use Autosave to transfer money to their investing, not savings, account).

The primary CTA here prompts the user to create another goal, if they’d like. “Done” takes them to the Autosave dashboard, where they can see their newly created goal.

Later on, we added the ability for users to fund their goal immediately after creating it—“Add money now.”

Custom Goal

There’s an odd hierarchy going on here, since at the end of delivery, we made tags mandatory and the goal name optional.

The tag options were business-driven decisions that mostly correspond to Chase offerings.

This is another math-based insight that tested very well in research.

Autosave Dashboard

Evaluate

After launching in January 2020, there were 44k goals created within the first month. Since GA, Autosave enrollment increased 38%, with an average safety net of $631; the amount of money existing Autosave users saved increased by 99%.

In 2019, Autosave users saved more than $1.3B. As of April 2020, Autosave users saved more than $2.6B, despite a decline in new enrollments due to COVID.

Expansion

Wealth Management extended our design and content strategy to create Autosave & Investing.

The goals framework is a core aspect of Chase First Banking, which aims to help kids and teens learn good money habits.

Next steps

Take a look