Case Study
A Financial Services Company Helps American Families Find Financial Success Via Micro Communities
overview
Figuring out how to pay bills and buy food while also saving for college and retirement, especially as prices rise and wages remain stagnant, can be a major stressor. So how can financial service providers help families learn how to better manage and even grow their savings over the long term?
This was the challenge faced by our client, a financial services and technology company, which offers a system tailored to help individuals and families manage and grow their money. They wanted to better understand the challenges American families face to aid their own employees in being more empathetic, as well as to uncover ways to enhance their product offering.
In response, C+R created a long-term, online qualitative micro-community to connect our client with a pre-recruited set of families, including those with Generation Alpha-aged children. This micro-community was also set up to help the client to discover ways to better position and promote the company as an expert in American families and their finances.
THE PROBLEM
Our client, a financial services and technology company created a system to enable individuals and families to better manage and grow their money over time. They were especially interested in helping families with Generation Alpha-aged children, as this market tends to have the most anxiety about their financial future and if they are managing their money in the most optimal way.
Specifically, our client sought C+R’s help to:
- Help their employees build empathy with American families;
- Enhance their product offering and features; and
- Position and promote their brand as an expert in understanding American families and their finances.
OUR APPROACH
C+R created an ongoing qualitative micro-community to give our client continued access to a pre-profiled set of families from across the United States. Through a series of activities, our client was able to learn more about the families’ journeys and emotions surrounding finance.
We recruited families with at least one Generation Alpha-aged child (6-12) and some with older teens (aged 13-17). All were familiar with using financial services applications for managing money across parents and children.
This micro-community provided the ability for the client team to build empathy and to deep dive into key areas across a variety of topics through a series of live-moderated and asynchronous discussions. We included at least one touchpoint per month to keep both clients and respondents engaged. Activities included live parent/child paired interviews, as well as asynchronous activities like video/photo uploads and surveys.
Throughout the course of the project, the client team was kept involved and informed via monthly brainstorm meetings, live video debriefs, toplines after each monthly activity, and calendar invitations for process meetings and monthly activities.
The result
As a result of this long-term study, our client gained a holistic understanding of the needs and emotions that American families have and experience when it comes to tracking their finances and growing their money long-term. With greater knowledge of these families’ delighters, pain points, and long-term objectives, our client was able to identify various white space opportunities to improve on and market their product offerings.
Most unique was the insights they gained into how Generation Alpha is beginning to learn about finances, including how this can vary depending on both family dynamics and the age of the individual child. The part of the study that focused on families with Generation Alpha-aged children provided a rare opportunity for our client to learn more about a segment (Generation Alpha) that is not usually observed from a financial services lens.
proven experience
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