Cases 25.11.2023

OP Entrepreneur’s financial coaching service concept clarified through service design

After the first year, OP’s Entrepreneur’s Financial Coaching service needed a clearer focus and wanted to develop it to serve customers even better. Clear guidelines were called for to support the reform. Dagmar’s team of experts got to work. The end result was a clarified concept that understands the everyday life of entrepreneurs, which made it easier to develop the service from content production to marketing communications – and helped inspire 48% more visitors to the Entrepreneur’s Financial Coaching website.

Aiming for an entrepreneur’s financial coaching content package that better serves customers

Financial coaching for entrepreneurs is a content package produced by OP that provides entrepreneurs with the necessary information to support financial management. The coaching serves in several different channels and its home base is the Entrepreneur’s Financial Coaching website.

The service was launched in spring 2021. Already during the first year’s trial, it was noticed that the service needed a sharper edge.

“We had produced content and tried out different channels and events to reach the target group of financial coaching. We soon recognized the need for clarity on what we should invest in and for whom, so that we can better create added value for our customers and develop financial coaching into a clear and useful entity.”

Päivi Sinkko, Marketing Lead, Digital sales and brand, B2B, OP Financial Group

A clear framework was needed to support the reform. The aim was to implement them by means of service design and by involving OP’s experts working with the Entrepreneur’s Financial Coaching, customer work as well as service users.

The starting point was defined as deepening user understanding by listening to both entrepreneurial customers and those working with customers at OP.
The target group was primarily new entrepreneurs, even though the coaching content supports a wide range of companies in everyday financial management.
The aim was to make choices that would facilitate the development of Entrepreneur’s Financial Coaching and make it serve entrepreneur customers even better.

User understanding was collected in two stages

The clarification of the service concept was started by Dagmar’s experts in early 2022. Dagmar’s team of experts was in charge, and together with OP, they designed the project plan and carried out the collection of user understanding in two phases:

The phase included in-depth interviews with entrepreneur customers to find out their views on the current service and their wishes/thoughts for its development. Information was also collected from OP’s experts, such as those engaged in customer work and the service team.

In the first phase, new ideas were tested in depth by re-interviewing entrepreneurial customers. The results were validated before the project was finalized.

Dagmar designed and implemented the necessary workshops. Experts from OP’s service development, customer interface and partners were invited to participate.

“We wanted to extensively involve both our customers and the person working in the customer interface in the work, so that we can get a versatile picture of the development of financial coaching for entrepreneurs. The project progressed smoothly in cooperation with Dagmar’s experts, who created a clear plan and steps for achieving the goals for the project. The end result was Service Blueprint, which provided the framework for taking the concept into practice and producing content.”

Päivi Sinkko, Marketing Lead, Digital sales and brand, B2B, OP Financial Group

More customer-oriented content increased the number of visitors to the site + 48%

As a result of the project, Dagmar produced a service concept description that included a Service Blueprint and definitions for the service. The definitions included, for example, the visibility of expertise in the service, clarification of the tone of voice, visual recommendations and content formats.
At OP, the service concept description has been utilised as planned, and the service has been developed based on the definitions. The description has facilitated the development of Entrepreneur’s Financial Coaching, including planning marketing communications and content production for both the online service and other channels. The clarification project has also helped to produce higher quality content that better meets the needs of entrepreneurial customers.

“Cooperation with Dagmar throughout the project went well and, despite the extensive project, proceeded well within the agreed schedules. After clarifying the service concept, the number of visitors to the entrepreneur´s financial coaching website increased by +48% in 2022 compared to the previous year.”

Päivi Sinkko, Marketing Lead, Digital sales and brand, B2B, OP Financial Group

In addition to involving entrepreneurial customers, seamless cooperation and multidisciplinary teams at both Dagmar and OP contributed to the success of the development project.

“A human-centric approach played a key role throughout the project, from project objectives to the involvement of end users and OP’s experts. When a well-prepared plan is followed and the process is trusted, the results speak for themselves.”

Anni Haavisto, Lead Strategist ja Emmi Usvalahti, Service Designer / Creative Producer, Dagmar

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