Stopping billions of dollars from walking out the door
We redesigned E*TRADE's Stock Plan experience, driving record asset retention through stronger customer confidence.
Problem: Customers were taking their money and leaving E*TRADE
E*TRADE was the largest stock plan provider in the market. But as soon as their equity vested, participants would sell it and leave.
In 2018, $22 billion in proceeds exited E*TRADE.
How do we turn involuntary stock plan participants into confident retail customers?
Only 14% of participants stuck around and became E*TRADE customers.
Understanding the leaky funnel
People already had other brokerage accounts, or they had large expenses/loans to pay down. Plus, taxes were confusing.
A combination of market research, user interviews, focus groups, and service blueprinting allowed us to understand how participants moved through E*TRADE's Stock Plan.
Mapping out the user journey across all Stock Plan touchpoints allowed us to set a UX strategy to empower new investors.
Building trust — Stock Plan redesign
We focused on simplifying Stock Plan jargon: make sense of your balances, understand tax implications, and get invested.
Before and after. The redesign focused on a clear layout, simple language, and personalization to drive better understanding of the participant's assets. Actionable events highlighted at the top of the page that evolve throughout the vesting lifecycle
Simplified right rail that combines Action Items and Upcoming Events
Hold or sell?
We redesigned the Planning Center to guide when to sell shares, using analyst insights, price targets, and tax tools, while adding ideas and products that help users lower risk, diversify, and grow.
The Planning Center provided guidance around the best times to sell shares through analyst recommendations, price targets and tax modeling.
Interactive card components could be dynamically inserted into the Planning Center based on the participant's vesting lifecycle.
Personalized cards provided actionable insights for all of the participant's accounts.
Helping participants sell confidently
We overhauled the sell flow to build on the trust and guidance from the previous steps.
Single trade ticket that lists all your equity types in a single transaction. Dynamic order totals that change based on user input and is always visible.
The Complete View
We partnered with the retail and banking teams to design a frictionless continuation of the Stock Plan journey.
After logging in to E*TRADE, Stock Plan customers would see their equity details front and center.
We had to strip our card designs down due to time + technical constraints.
I laid out the guidelines for E*TRADE's design system for charts.
We had to strip our card designs down due to time + technical constraints.
Record asset retention + increased customer engagement.
Clear guidance and trust along all touchpoints of the Stock Plan participant journey helped E*TRADE see a record increase in asset retention. Customers were also more retail engaged, driving more customers on brokerage and banking.
