How Wisr, a neo-lender, creates customer-focused financial products & experiences
Established: 2014
Employees: 70+
HQ: Sydney, Australia
Adobe Subscription: Creative Cloud for teams
Most used apps: InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Lightroom, XD, Premiere Pro
The Wisr ecosystem
Wisr’s mission is to help people pay down their debt faster. The company focuses on helping everyday Australians access credit, and then provides tools and products to encourage them to pay that credit down faster.
Chief Marketing Officer, James Goodwin said “Having a purpose and vision at the core of what we do, makes the process of prioritisation and decision making easier. It gives us the rails which means we put what is genuinely best for the customer at the core of what we design, create and deliver.”
This includes their debt reduction tool, Wisr App, which is Australia’s first app to help customers automatically pay down debt whenever they spend, by rounding up daily transactions to the nearest dollar. The total round-ups for the week are withdrawn at the end of each week and pay off debt each month.
Another product is WisrCredit, allowing customers to check multiple credit scores in one place. Wisr also offers unsecured personal loans so needs can be met. Those with good financial standing are rewarded with lower rates.
“The Wisr brand and business is growing”, says Audrey Neale, Digital Marketing Manager.
The creative team behind the brand
Chief Marketing Officer James Goodwin, lead the creation and positioning of the Wisr brand. His role is more than just communications and marketing – he and the team oversee the full end-to-end experience from first touch point all the way through to customer satisfaction and feedback loop.
Design Lead, Holly McKee, has been with Wisr since the rebrand. Drawn to the dynamic, startup environment, she thrives on the fast pace and the agility to mould the brand from the ground up.
Digital Marketing Manager, Audrey Neale, was attracted by the opportunity to make a difference and see tangible outcomes, all while collaborating with an energetic team. Audrey views Wisr’s ecosystem of products as a motivating marketing challenge – finding new ways to cross-sell and show how they work together.
Rounding out the team is Graphic Designer, Shamanthi Rajasingham. Excited by Wisr’s process and ethos, she’s driven by the opportunity to carve out her niche and make a real impact.
Customer-first product development
The fintech space is all about trust and loyalty. That’s why Wisr prioritises customer satisfaction and user experience over the bottom line. With innovative products to design and promote, the next step is to gather more user feedback and then iterate these insights into new features. To be trusted, Wisr seeks real connection; knowing what customers don’t like is the engine for improvement.
Wisr keeps an eye on trends both industry and market-wide, in a local and international context. They keep an eye on trending finance apps and use current events and popular culture to inform fresh, topical content. But in the end, it’s Wisr’s customers who truly inspire. Their stories and feedback directly influence design decisions as well as product improvements.
“If there is anything we consistently hear from our customers and partners, it’s that they love our brand. Appealing to your audience is incredibly important, not only to establish recognition, but because your brand is essentially the face of your business,” says Holly. “We take absolute pride in developing high quality work and I think this is why our customers trust us so much.”
Designing for accessibility
Wisr focuses on inclusivity and accessible design to create experiences that don’t alienate anyone from being able to use their products. There’s a difference between having to meet a content accessibility guideline and genuinely wanting to. Accessible design isn’t always obvious to look at, but it’s crucial for those who need it.
“UX is designing with empathy; understanding customers on a deeper level. Knowing how they think, experience the world and interact with your products and brands, so you can design experiences that meet and surpass their needs,” says Holly.
Using the hive mind
Working for Wisr means working in an agile environment. Modern marketers need to be masters of many trades: design, content and UX. Operating in two-week sprints, the team sits down to prioritise upcoming tasks. Big on user research, prototyping, and using the hive mind, the Wisr team utilises all skill sets to determine flow, features and information hierarchy; tapping into different brains, perspectives, goals and ideas.
“We were working on a new landing page with the entire marketing team in the room. Not everyone’s a designer, but we each sketched out how we felt the landing page should flow. What kind of features do you want to see? What information is important?” says Audrey.
“Having different perspectives in our workshops really helps to drive a collaborative approach and the end result is always better.”
“We usually just start with pencil and paper and have a few rounds refining our ideas, then we’ll move into Photoshop or InDesign to refine our designs and make them pixel perfect.” says Holly.
Powered with Creative Cloud for teams
InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Lightroom, XD and Premiere Pro have been imperative in Wisr’s evolution. Creative Cloud for teams is used across the whole creative process – from websites, apps and print media to branded merchandise and social media collateral.
“I’m a big believer in cross functional teams, working together to solve a common goal or pain point for the customer. This means giving our people the tools to collaborate and design great outcomes,” says James, Wisr’s Chief Marketing Officer.
“I can honestly say that not a day has passed at Wisr where we don’t use one of the Creative Cloud apps. It’s pretty much what we use for everything”
- Holly
Headquartered in Sydney, Wisr has employees all over Australia. These distributed teams need to collaborate on multiple files, in real-time. Even team members with no design skills can still use tools such as Acrobat to get access to files and edit presentations.
‘We can provide a file with over 100 slides, and people can just pick and choose what they need, and pull it together themselves,’ says Holly.
With a strong focus on user experience and the creative tools to realise and evolve customer-friendly products, Wisr continues to be a force of finance.
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