Case Study 4

Restoring Trust and Conversion

Client : Leading ANZ Consumer Finance Platform

Our Approach

We were engaged to evaluate the entire customer funnel, from awareness through application, identity verification, onboarding, and early servicing interactions.

Our role was end-to-end:

Diagnosing trust erosion across digital and operational touchpoints
Identifying where friction was necessary versus where it was avoidable
Leading hands-on redesign efforts with internal teams
Providing clear prioritization under time pressure

The analysis revealed that conversion losses were driven less by the security incident itself, and more by how existing friction was experienced through a heightened trust lens. In particular, customers struggled to understand how their data was being accessed, why certain steps were required, and whether the process was safe.

From Insight to Action

Working closely with executive leadership, we designed and prioritized a set of targeted interventions focused on rebuilding confidence while improving flow:

Clearer reassurance and trust messaging at key decision points
Reduced friction and simplified information intake during application
Redesign of identity verification and open banking touchpoints to improve transparency
Operational fixes behind the scenes to support faster, more predictable outcomes
Revamped sections of the website to align expectations with reality

Some changes were implemented rapidly to arrest drop-off; others were phased to ensure sustainability.

Impact

Within 1–3 months of implementation, the platform saw an immediate $1M revenue uplift in the first phase, alongside sustained improvements in conversion rates.

More importantly, leadership regained confidence in the platform’s growth trajectory — and in their ability to influence it. The work shifted the organization from reactive problem-solving to deliberate, human-centered conversion optimization.

The Situation

A leading consumer finance platform in Australia and New Zealand experienced a high-profile security incident that put heightened scrutiny on its customer journey. While overall site traffic remained strong, conversion rates dropped sharply. Customers were abandoning applications at critical moments, and leadership lacked clarity on why.

Importantly, the incident alone did not explain the decline. Pricing sensitivity, complex onboarding, and customer anxiety around identity verification were compounding the issue. What the organization needed was not a crisis response — but clarity on where trust was eroding and which friction points truly mattered for growth.

The Challenge

The platform faced two intertwined challenges.

First, customer hesitation spiked during identity verification and onboarding, particularly where third-party open banking and verification vendors were involved. While operationally sound, these steps felt opaque and risky to customers — amplifying fear and frustration at a moment when confidence was already fragile.

Second, leadership struggled to distinguish between perception-driven drop-off and genuine operational breakdowns. Without a clear diagnostic view of the full funnel, efforts to improve conversion risked being reactive, misdirected, or overly defensive.

The business needed to restore momentum quickly — but without guessing.