Designed by BIL

BIL’s effective, user-friendly services have won over clients. But how were they made? Aurélien Mellé, UX Manager at BIL, reveals all.

Why is it important to improve product and service design? It can often be difficult for our clients to understand the banking world and its services and products. Whether these services have a computer architecture – such as internet or mobile services, or a physical one – like our branch organisation, their design and application must be user-friendly. Our products and services are designed to be easy, efficient, and enjoyable to use, as well as ensuring the best user experience possible. This is what we call UX (User eXperience).

UX must have that balance between practicality and aesthetics. Let’s take the example of blocking a lost debit card. It’s understandably a stressful situation for a client to be in. So at BIL, we’ve introduced a simple solution enabling clients to lock their card via the BILnet app. The service may seem simple, but it was difficult to implement and customer access required brainstorming. You need to be able to access this feature fast and easily when faced with that emergency situation, however as it’s not a frequent occurrence, this feature shouldn’t be intrusive.

How do you go about designing services? The user is the starting point, their opinions and comments. We ask them questions, listen to them and gather their feedback. Social media, as well as app stores where BILnet is available, are also a valuable source for user feedback. Users are always willing to express their level of satisfaction in detail. And finally, our customers often share their feedback with their relationship manager, which we also take into account.

I’d like to point out that before we launch a service, we offer clients the opportunity to take part in the testing phase if they wish, to make sure it fully meets their expectations.

What new developments can we expect in the future in terms of user experience? It’s hard to give one clear answer as customer needs and applications vary a lot from country to country. One thing is certain, their expectations condition the choices we make on specific criteria, such as security, instantaneity, efficiency and personalisation. These four factors will remain the basis for future developments.

Finally, I would say that thanks to open banking, services from partner companies can be linked to BIL’s online banking platform. This is a major trend that’s only going to gain in popularity in the future.

“Our products and services are designed to be easy, efficient, and enjoyable to use, as well as ensuring the best user experience possible.”