How do you make financial planning engaging, fun and practical for an audience that spans up to four different generations?
That’s what Workers Credit Union, partnering with Adrenaline, wanted to solve with the development of a new in-branch touch-enabled app – Workers PlanIt app – that matches up people with products and service categories to make manifest their most ambitious financial dreams. Unlike any other financial planning tool, the Workers PlanIt app bridges the gap between financial education and entertainment.
By focusing on target audiences – members and potential members – centering who they are and what life stage they’re in and, perhaps even more importantly, what their biggest financial goals are, Workers Credit Union was able to truly connect financial services resources to the needs-states and life-stages of real people seeking to do real things with their money.
A Gamified Approach to Financial Education and Planning
Developed with the foundation of an interactive video game, the Workers’ PlanIt app prompts are targeted toward revealing and refining results that would be meaningful for each audience member. In service of financial education, the app contains a series of questions for each life cycle a user might be in, matched with categories of service and financial knowledge each of them needs to make their financial dreams come true.
Why Financial Planning is Crucial Across Life Stages
Featuring a gamified approach responding to a user’s financial goals, this life-stage financial planning tool ultimately allows people to build a custom financial plan for achieving their dreams. Whether it’s a 65-plus senior focused on retirement, newer families looking at buying a bigger home or a young person funding their education or buying their first car, Worker’s PlanIt helps users identify their life stage and gives them expert financial advice on the next steps they should take to make their dream a reality.
The Role of In-Branch Engagement in Financial Planning
With an in-branch setting, the app is supported by live staff on-site, who are available to answer users’ financial questions and provide valuable counsel. With a goal that is both utilitarian and aspirational, the output of the app is a plan that users can act on when they’re ready. Designed to ultimately appeal to everyone but with content tailored and targeted to each individual’s unique life stage, the Worker’s PlanIt app is the first tool of its kind for a financial institution and has been rolled out as a prototype in two locations.
Audience Focus: Meeting Members Where They Are
With reaching members and potential members at various stages of their lives for a continued focus on the financial institution, Workers Credit Union focused its efforts on creating meaningful financial technology with financial education and resources available based on life stage needs. For the PlanIt app, the major focus is on the predominant financial decision makers, who are women aged 25-34, more affluent leaning more toward a tech-savvy member. With more than 100,000 members, Workers Credit Union serves members with 16 full-service branches, including two prototype PlanIt locations.
The launch was so successful that Workers Credit Union will be expanding its use of the Workers PlanIt app while opening up two new PlanIt concepts each year for the next five years to expand the new concept and provide a new platform for how Workers Credit Union plans to engage with their members and prospective members through life-stage financial planning.
Financial institutions know that the branch is where banking relationships start, strengthen and sustain for better ROI. Workers Credit Union and Adrenaline were able to move digital banking concepts into the retail space for a unique banking solution, benefitting current and potential credit union members across all stages in their financial planning. This work even earned the Workers PlanIt app a coveted Addy Award.
Do you want to build engaging customer experiences for your bank or credit union? Get in touch with the banking industry experts at Adrenaline to see how we can help.
Adrenaline is an end-to-end brand experience company serving the financial industry. We move brands and businesses ahead by delivering on every aspect of their experience across digital and physical channels, from strategy through implementation. Our multi-disciplinary team works with leadership to advise on purpose, position, culture, and retail growth strategies. We create brands people love and engage audiences from employees to customers with story-led design and insights-driven marketing; and we design and build transformative brand experiences across branch networks, leading the construction and implementation of physical spaces that drive business advantage and make the brand experience real.
