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Case study · 011 · Banking · Digital touchpoints

ABN AMRO

Led 1:1 interview research on key digital touchpoints across the ABN AMRO website — turning user friction into prioritized, stakeholder-aligned improvements that shipped within the engagement.

Client
ABN AMRO
Industry
Fintech · Major Dutch bank
Engagement
Jun '22 – Sep '22 · 4 months
Services
UX Research · 1:1 Interviews
Role
Lead Researcher
I · The challenge

A bank's website isn't a product. It's a trust account customers withdraw from every click.

ABN AMRO wanted to understand how customers were actually experiencing key digital touchpoints across its website — not what analytics said about clicks, but what real users felt about the moments where banking decisions get made.

My remit: lead the execution, analysis, and reporting of focused 1:1 interview research targeting those digital touchpoints. The output had to do more than describe the problem. It had to drive concrete improvements that stakeholders could actually implement — within four months.

"Our analytics tell us the where. They can't tell us why customers hesitate, drop, or call us instead. That's what we need from research."

— ABN AMRO digital team, kick-off
II · How I worked

Focused interviews. Stakeholder-anchored from day one.

Four months is short. So the work was sequenced for speed and stakeholder alignment — making sure every interview fed insight into a process that was already preparing to act on it.

01
1:1 in-depth interviews
Phase 1–2 · Months 1–2

Led the execution of 1:1 interview research targeting specific digital touchpoints on the ABN AMRO website. Semi-structured, story-driven, focused on the friction moments that erode trust before they show up in analytics.

02
Touchpoint-level analysis
Phase 2 · Month 2

Mapped each customer's experience back to specific digital touchpoints — separating the universal friction (every customer hits this) from the segment-specific (only happens for this user type, in this context).

03
Stakeholder collaboration
Throughout

Collaborated with stakeholders throughout the engagement to ensure effective communication of insights — translating research findings into language and recommendations each function could actually act on.

04
Implementation guidance
Phase 3–4 · Months 3–4

Guided the implementation of enhancements directly — staying involved through stakeholder review and prioritization so research evidence shaped what got shipped, not just what got documented.

III · How it unfolded

Four months. Insight to implementation.

Month 1 · scoping

Pinning down the right touchpoints

Started by aligning with the digital team on which touchpoints mattered most — where analytics were screaming and the team was still debating "why." Set up the interview structure to answer that question, not just describe it.

Months 1–2 · fieldwork

1:1 interviews with real customers

Ran the 1:1 interviews focused on digital touchpoints. Heard the words customers actually use when they hesitate — and the moments where the website unintentionally undermines its own trust.

Month 3 · synthesis

Reporting designed for action

Synthesised findings into a stakeholder-ready report. Anchored every insight to a specific touchpoint and a specific recommendation — making it easy for the digital team to move from "interesting" to "ship this."

Month 4 · implementation

Guiding the changes through

Stayed involved as enhancements moved from recommendation into delivery — ensuring research evidence kept its shape as it travelled through stakeholder review, prioritization, and design handover.

"

In banking, UX isn't conversion. It's trust per click — and every digital touchpoint either deposits or withdraws from that account.

— The pivotal insight
IV · What I delivered

Insight, evidence, and shipped change.

A four-month engagement designed to end with concrete improvements in production — not a slide deck on a server.

01
1:1 interview research execution
Recruitment, fieldwork, transcription, and tagged analysis — all delivered to a major Dutch bank's standards for evidence quality and confidentiality.
02
Digital touchpoint analysis
A clear map of where, on the ABN AMRO website, friction was actually costing customers — separated from where it just looked like it was.
03
Stakeholder-ready insight reports
Findings framed for product, design, and digital leadership — every recommendation anchored to a specific touchpoint and supported by direct user evidence.
04
Stakeholder communication briefings
Recurring touchpoints with stakeholders to keep insight visible during prioritization — so research signal didn't get diluted on the way to implementation.
05
Implementation guidance
Hands-on support through delivery — making sure shipped enhancements still reflected the original user evidence and didn't drift in the handover.
V · Results

Four months. Evidence to action.

4m
discovery → shipped enhancements
1:1
methodology — depth over breadth
touchpoints mapped to specific friction
research-to-implementation ownership
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Banking, fintech, or regulated digital touchpoints?

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