What would I do if I were PM? Brigit Case Study
Applying behavioral science to fintech
I love companies, and I love problems. With those 2 things in mind, what better way to spend my time then trying to figure out the problems of a company and how I would solve them?
That’s exactly what this article is about. To exercise my product management chops I like to analyze companies I’m interested in and come up with product strategies. Bonus is sharing with the company itself and seeing whether or not:
- a) I got it “right” (aka they are thinking about the same things) or
- b) whether I did something different, they didn’t think of (wohoo, this gets me excited)
So, armed with only public information, this is what I would do if I were PM at Brigit!
Setting the scene: What’s the problem?
According to the companies website, Brigit is a payday app with a mission to create “transparent, fair, and simple tools, [that] help you spend wisely, avoid unfair fees, and start saving more”. Its first product is a $250 loan delivered instantly to your account.
Given I don’t work at the company, I don’t have access to detailed app data. So, I simply downloaded the app and started testing features forming a couple of hypotheses and then moved to app/play store reviews & reddit forums. This is what I found:
INSIGHT: Brigit’s budgeting tools are unrivaled, but it doesn’t seem customers are experiencing their full value
Laying the groundwork: Does it matter, and what can we do about it?
Does it matter that Brigit’s users don’t talk about their budgeting tools? I like to think of product development in terms of Kano Model of customer satisfaction:
Today, Brigit is clearly doing an awesome job with its threshold attributes (marked green) — customers go to the app for the cash, they get it smoothly.
However, for me, future growth at Brigit should be one where customers talk about budgeting tools (no. 4). Firstly, that’s a sign that the company has helped customers overcome their problems with overdrafts (their mission), and also makes it harder for their competition to steal their target customers. There are quite a couple of pay day apps out there, with Brigit’s biggest distinction being a higher pay day amount.
I’m interested in how Brigit can continue building on this foundation to reach no. 4, the delight attributes. I believe it’s possible using behavioral science.
No. 2 & no. 3 represent performance attributes; people won’t leave the product if they are not there, but they make sure customer stay. Using behavioral science, there are low cost improvements of existing products that will give users an effective reason to choose Brigit, providing a nice platform to reach no. 4, the delight attributes that provide a whole new level of customer satisfaction.
Product Features: Ok, what do these features look like?
To optimize and maximize the impact of Brigit’s budgeting tools we can use social norms, number representation, and data!
1. Increase comms engagement with social norms and word choice
Changing newsletter with social norms: Why would this work?
On the Behavioral insights team, we saw a 30% increase in tax repayments when displaying information like this.
Relevant social norms drive users desire to conform to their perception of themselves, and framing the number in absolutes is easier for people to comprehend than relative standings.
Changing videos with number representation: Why would this work?
Numbers can be more powerful at conveying a message than percentages. If the Brigit planning videos aim to encourage planning, why not reframe it in actual numbers, given the % of people that plan is so low:
“20% of people plan more than you” CURRENT
“2,000,000 people plan more than you” PROPOSED
2. Adding a “No-time section” into your Extra cash section
The above features offer the opportunity to increase engagement at little cost. Now, lets look at how you can convert that extra engagement into a deeper relationship with the customer by maximizing their income:
Why would this work?
Whilst people may want to earn extra cash, I’m guessing the population we are serving is already tight on time and so might not be able to use these features. With that in mind, why don’t we remove the scarcity of time, and empower them to earn extra cash with a couple of taps?
I am conscious that changing bank accounts is very difficult in the United States. Here, product needs to weighs up the customer value to the cost. If more customers sign up to this product, or use the app more frequently because it’s there, the engineering cost might be worthwhile.
How could we test that hypothesis? definitely another article or perhaps we could use the frameworks set here!
3. With all the savings built up using Brigit, open up capital with a savings account
If we are able to reach this point, customers should have built up extra savings (switching from Bank of America to Ally bank can save you >$100 in overdraft alone). Now, let’s use gamification to help them keep those savings:
Why would this work?
Saving is notoriously difficult because of hyperbolic discounting, people don’t care about the future. This is even more salient for Brigit customers, so focus on short term realistic goals and take a share of the savings made with Brigit and store.
Sanity Check: Do we think any of this could work?
Ok, so now we have created all these beautiful product features, aside from experimentation, is there any way we can get a signal on whether any of this could work?
As a final step, I like to look at what the competition is doing. Sure we want to be innovative, but equally, if we want to do something nobody else has done, we should validate with our customers that it’s solving a problem they really feel.
Ok folks, and that’s a wrap! What do you think? Would you arrive at the same conclusions? You can contact me here
