COVID Relief Roadmap

During the financial crisis of COVID-19, members needed fast, reliable financial relief guidance tailored to their personal circumstances.

The Challenge

Since the pandemic response began, site usage was up more than 20% between existing and new users, but 80% of them were checking credit scores and then bouncing. They were coming for financial help and only finding opportunities to get deeper in debt. We needed to meet users where they were and address the financial problems they were experiencing.

My Role

  • Led user research and rapid prototyping to quickly stub up durable architecture and a core product.

  • Developed a structured content system to present relevant relief programs in a clear and actionable way.

  • Facilitated ongoing user testing and research to refine designs and build out features as needs emerged.

Process

  • Launched a rapid research sprint to understand urgent member needs.

  • Created a streamlined content system to match users with the right relief options.

  • Iterated based on real-time feedback and engagement data.

Outcomes

  • 3.1% lift in engagement, resulting in 1.8M additional visits per month.

  • Satisfaction score - 80% (up from 64%  on June 1).

  • CK actives visiting relief - 27.2% (up from 20.8%).

  • Unique Visitors - 13.9 million (up from 9.6m).

  • Drove 14 million members to the experience, 32% took action.

  • 147K daily unique visits per day on average.

Hypothesis

We believe establishing a benevolent resource center and quickly expanding it to include rich features with relevant personal content will help members protect their financial position during a global economic crisis, increase engagement, and secure brand loyalty.

Constraints

  • Users don’t look to CK for relief programs

  • Containers technology is still in beta

  • Ship quickly to remain helpful during a rapidly changing crisis

  • Build a new team, rituals and processes while organization is adjusting to remote conditions

Scope of Work

  1. Connect users to relief programs relevant to them based on their eligibility for government programs, existing tradelines and credit report data.

  2. Help users manage their expenses by connecting them to relief measures provided by their financial products and institutions.

  3. Help users protect their credit position by prioritizing irreversible decisions over ephemeral ones, eg. making payments over credit usage.

  4. Connect users to the most current and relevant information in a rapidly changing environment by coordinating with various content development teams across product and marketing.

  5. Rapidly test, experiment, and iterate to make the Relief Roadmap an engaging experience for users in crisis.

Research

  • COVID-19 Financial Pulse Surveys (monthly)

  • Qualitative moderated and unmoderated concept testing (launched every other week March-July)

  • Foundational research from our research team

  • Recent Stories research and user testing

  • Ongoing chatbot engagement and user feedback

  • Broad dogfooding participation across the company

Learnings

  • We learned: Users didn’t have multiple credit options and were looking for simple ways to navigate an ambiguous financial environment.

  • We learned: Users were more interested in ways to make additional income and programs helping them offset or pause expenses like utilities and rent.

  • As of 7/13, 23% of Credit Karma Members have filed for unemployment

  • 22% of Members have less than 3 weeks of readily available funds in their accounts before running out of money.

  • 18% report they need help finding cash to cover day-to-day living essentials.

Aligned on goals, principles and strategy

Facilitated a remote workshop to align on goals, principles and strategy.

Principles:

  • Certainty effect; give clarity over chance

  • Autonomy bias; give agency

  • Loss aversion; gains are less compelling than losses

Dynamic content management system

Worked with editorial team to keep accurate and current information serving users in the product experience.

A durable architecture for nimble iterations

Designed durable content architecture for nimble iterations.

MVP launch

Concept to launch in 2 weeks. Iterations shipped every week.

What shipped & outcomes

  • Satisfaction score - 80% (up from 64%  on June 1)

  • CK actives visiting relief - 27.2% (up from 20.8%)

  • Unique Visitors - 13.9 million (up from 9.6m)

  • Drove 14 million members to the experience, 32% took action

  • 3.5M+ unique Relief Roadmap visits attributed to enticed campaigns since May 1

  • 147K daily unique visits per day on average

Users found valuable opportunities

Home and personal loan assistance were the most valuable categories.

Members feeling better about their finances

As the economy slowly began to reopen, members felt better about their finances.

Financial optimism about the future

Users became more financially optimistic about the future

The relief information was helpful for most members

“It pleased me to know that there were options I didn't know I had in these trying tumes. Thank you Credit Karma!”
-Capital One credit card assistance

“Due to the current economic situation money is extremely scarce and the information you shared with me was very helpful and informative. Thank you for sharing!”
-EdFinancial student loan assistance

“Very detailed about what can be done to resolve every single negative account and also the possible routes to take towards relief. AMAZING tool”
-Improve your recommendations

“There is so much conflicting information in the media and you’re a trusted site to get the facts.”
-Paid leave of absence

Received Award from Fast Company

Received honorable mention in the World Changing Ideas Awards by Fast Company

Full Details

Tap the image to see the TV commercial or look at the deck to see the whole Relief Roadmap design story.