ROSSUL

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Libro Credit Union is a credit union in London, Ontario that services southwestern Ontario. We have 31 branches. We’re a full-service financial institution offering all the products you would expect from any financial institution. My role specifically is digital banking manager. I oversee our online and mobile banking offerings that allow our current customers, which we call owners, the ability to log into their account and manage their holdings at Libro, pay bills, transfer money and all the things you come to expect from an online bank.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with ROSSUL?

When we first started working with ROSSUL, we had a very dated online banking system which hadn’t been really rewritten since 2001. We had some minor updates to it, but the user interface and even the backend technology was on a very old system. We were actually forced to update our backend because of a requirement. We decided it would be a great opportunity to rewrite our content as well. We struggled doing that internally, which is when we started looking for an external provider. They helped us rewrite our front and back, which we launched in 2014, and then, more recently, we decided to rewrite our mobile banking as well for consistency’s sake and because we were very pleased with the work of ROSSUL.

We looked to work with them again, and we just launched in the last two months, actually. We don’t have any user interface designers or user experience experts internally. What we were looking for from ROSSUL was someone to bring that expertise who would even help us test our prototypes before we actually went to market to make sure that we were more confident in them, and to give us somebody to help us create a design methodology to ensure that our interface doesn’t get too dated and that we can continue to enhance it over time.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped us rewrite our frontend and backend which we launched in 2014. It was a full rewrite of our online banking. At the time, users could go into a really simplistic website, pay bills, transfer money, edit future date of payment, and that was about it. There was no personalization to the website at all, and it was not modern by any sense of the word.

The work that ROSSUL did was help us create a more personalized experience, so users could see their own user profile, upload images of themselves, see images of their financial advisor, which we call “coaches” at Libro. They could more intuitively do all the payments and money transfers that they required.

ROSSUL wasn’t tasked to create any new money movement functionality in any way. That’s not necessarily their job. It was really to make the features that we already had more intuitive. They reworked all the processes that the user was using. More recently, we decided to rewrite our mobile banking, as well, for consistency’s sake and because we were very pleased with the work of ROSSUL. We just launched that in the last two months.

Eli is the main stakeholder there and seems to do most of the design work. I know that they have a developer that I don’t believe is in the country. I believe the partner is situated somewhere else. I believe he has a couple designers, as well. With the mobile work, he introduced us to three new designers. One started off as kind of an intern and helped us do the user experience testing, who also ended up doing some design work, as well. When they worked on the first project, they had a user experience tester as well, at the time, which he contracted out for our project.

How did you come to work with ROSSUL?

I believe we originally stumbled across them through Google AdWords. We liked that they were local and we explored their website to see their previous work. At the time, we were slightly crunched, because we had tried to do the work internally at first. We were at a time where, without changing our launch date, we couldn’t go through an RFP process. We reached out to ROSSUL and got them to do a quote for us and pitch us without looking at anybody else. We did some reference checks on them and were satisfied with what we saw. We were also satisfied with their work.

In between the two projects, we did have the opportunity to work with some other providers, and it created more confidence in our liking for ROSSUL versus some other partners that we’ve used in the past. We like their methodology and their ability to stay on time.

Sometimes I find, internally, you can have this opinion that challenges your designers to step out of their comfort zone and not really do what they think is right, or not really have any kind of scientific backing, but ROSSUL has really pushed us to let the process work. We liked that, and it improved the results.

How much have you invested with ROSSUL?

We’ve spent between $300,000 and $350,000 on the two projects.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2013, and the work is ongoing. They are continuing to monitor and help us modify our mobile work. We just launched that at the beginning of the last month, and so they’re still on contract with us to monitor the feedback, make any changes, and fix any bugs. We are looking to work with them for another project in the future.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The usage of our platforms has gone up tremendously since our rewrite in 2014. I don’t have any stats on the mobile project since it just launched. I receive all the negative and positive feedback on the project. The overwhelming testimonial at the beginning was almost all about time and relief. Our usage per user increased dramatically. We track user engagement and where we used to see around one login per month, we saw that get closer to three. There has been more for the user to engage with, especially in terms of messaging and communicating with their financial advisor.

How did ROSSUL perform from a project management standpoint?

Between the two projects, it changed quite a bit. I’d say that the system that they used the second time around was better for us. They used a more visual Gantt chart for us to follow along, which it seemed like the whole team was utilizing. They also used JIRA, which was helpful. They’re moving more toward an Agile methodology. I don’t think they’re fully there, but they’re definitely using some of its best practices, which we’ve been trying to implement a little bit internally as well. I know that they use Slack between their teams, but they didn’t use Slack between the two organizations because we don’t use it internally.

What did you find most impressive about ROSSUL?

The one thing that’s always stood out for me is their honesty and their willingness to push us into directions that might not be the most comfortable for the organization, but just to challenge us to be a bit more modern. As a financial institution, we’re comfortable in being a bit more traditional, and we’ve needed a bit of a push. Being able to talk candidly and honestly with them has been refreshing, rather than just being a “yes” company and doing what they’re asked.

They are incredible designers. They do really strong work. We’ve worked with a few different agencies, and seeing their projects go from wireframing to life is something that’s always exciting to see. Their focus on the user is something that they’ve pushed on us. We've been told to ignore the internal reasons for why we think something should work a certain way, and instead focus on how the user is going to intuitively think about something. That’s been a good lesson for us and something that they’ve definitely taught us.

Are there any areas ROSSUL could improve?

We definitely saw some improvement over the two projects. Any missed deadlines were usually our fault. We have so many moving projects at the same time that it’s very often we can get ourselves off track. But their improvements in project management the second time around allowed us to see it more visually when we were getting off track, and allowed us to collaborate and make changes on the move. There’s probably still some progress to be made in their project management. I think he knows it which is why he’s been modifying his process over time.