Skipton Building Society

In 2018, Radical went onboard with Skipton Building Society as their mobile app partner. We were entrusted with the task of strategising, consulting, designing, and developing Skipton’s app that was widely affected by the negative user experience and low ratings on iOS and Android. We were challenged to improve the functionality of their app that currently served customers with only a 6 digit code before accessing their online account on a web browser. The lengthy onboarding process contributed to their low ratings. 

Radical’s initial responsibility was to support and maintain the existing app in the market while updating it as required. Parallelly, we collaborated with Skipton to define their flagship customer app in terms of design, functionality, and development process. Our initial approach included conducting internal workshops with Skipton employees, exploring the collectively desired features, features of the website & online secure portal offers grouping together with what the customers expect from Skipton.

The Radical team then produced an initial design prototype. Based on all the findings, we designed some key features for the app to be presented back to Skipton. With further feedback, we refined our design to be on-brand along with the changed functionality of some features. As the updated prototype was put through customer testing, we conducted sessions with a focus group of Skipton customers to gather firsthand feedback on customer experience and expectations. We explored their expectations in terms of the features to include, functionalities of those features, and what they felt could be improved.

The newly found data enabled us with the tools and information to refine the design prototype further and work with Skipton on a definitive feature list for the app to be launched in the first phase. We presented features based on customer expectation, revenue generation, feasibility, and their placement in the app. Together with Skipton, Radical defined the design and usability of the app. Radical then worked with Skipton’s development team to help them expose the required APIs from their internal systems to power such functions in a mobile app. Alongside their internal developments of the APIs, we developed the app natively for Android & iOS across phones and tablets 

After a third testing phase, an internal pilot was conducted by releasing the app to Skipton employees. A second pilot was conducted for select customer groups and finally, the app was launched in July of 2019 for all Skipton customers. The launch was followed by Radical providing a comprehensive support and maintenance package for Skipton, ensuring that technical support was always available if needed in and out of office hours. This included introducing various new features and updating the app to be compatible with the new device and OS releases before their availability to customers to ensure zero downtime. 

Finally, at the end of 2020, Radical handed over the project to an internal team at Skipton which Radical had supported in being recruited. A strong relationship remains between Radical and Skipton, with occasional support required during busy times of work at Skipton or even just when occasional technical advice is needed. The app remains a huge success for Skipton, having gone from 2 stars on iOS and 1.5 stars on Android, to 4 stars and 3.7 stars ratings, averaging 300+ new downloads every day.