WhatsApp-Based Customer Support

Design for a culturally relevant customer support solution that reduced operational costs while improving customer satisfaction.

Project Overview

A leading Latin American bank was struggling with fragmented customer support channels that forced customers through exhaustive processes and inconsistent experiences. I led the design of an innovative WhatsApp-based customer support solution that leveraged the platform's high adoption rate in Latin America to create a flexible, asynchronous support experience that reduced operational costs while improving customer satisfaction.

Timeline: 16 weeks | Role: Design Lead

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership: Facilitated executive workshops to align stakeholders on core business problems and customer profiles
Research Direction: Guided cross-functional research team through multi-phase user validation and concept testing
Design Vision: Developed solution vision and design principles for conversational banking interface
Stakeholder Management: Synthesized research findings into executive reports and managed expectations across banking leadership
Team Collaboration: Mentored bank designers through prototype development and requirements definition

Problem

Customers faced significant friction when seeking support, requiring extensive time investment and repetitive identity verification across multiple channels. The fragmented experience led to:

Operational Inefficiency: Dissatisfied customers escalating to expensive branch visits
Lost Revenue: Missed cross-sell opportunities due to poor support experiences
Customer Frustration: Inconsistent information and unclear case status visibility
Security Concerns: Lack of integrated verification across channels

Research revealed that underserved customer segments needed flexible, self-service options that fit their lifestyle patterns, particularly asynchronous communication that didn't require immediate availability.

Impact and Solution

Solution: Designed a conversational WhatsApp interface enabling customers to perform key banking actions through guided, secure conversations.

Core Features

Smart Authentication: Low-sensitivity verification system that maintained security while reducing friction
Transaction Management: Streamlined process for challenging unknown transactions (highest priority use case)
Self-Service Capabilities: Credit limit requests and card replacement ordering
Information Navigation: Pagination and smart filtering for consuming dense transaction data in conversational format

Business Impact

High Adoption: Strong uptake of new channel for targeted use cases
AI Training Data: Customer interactions enhanced AI models for future support improvements
Improved NPS: Better customer satisfaction through flexible, accessible support
Cost Reduction: Decreased branch visits and optimized support channel usage

Key Learnings

Cultural Context Drives Design: Understanding Latin America's WhatsApp adoption and cultural concerns about financial fraud was crucial for designing appropriate security measures and building user trust.

Conversational UI Complexity: Balancing the simplicity of messaging with the complexity of financial information required innovative approaches to information architecture and progressive disclosure.

Cross-Channel Integration: Success required seamless integration with existing support systems to maintain consistency and prevent the fragmentation we aimed to solve.

Research-Driven Prioritization: Multiple testing rounds with real prototypes helped identify highest-value use cases and address cultural concerns that weren't initially apparent to stakeholders.