Designing for the advice gap
A working prototype in three weeks became the build specification.
A mutual financial services group had a question the industry keeps avoiding: how do you serve customers who need guidance but can’t carry the cost of full advice? Regulated advice needs qualified advisers, and qualified advisers mean a cost to serve that only larger portfolios justify. Below that line, customers got generic content or silence.
We designed a digital-first coaching proposition from scratch, rather than cutting advice down. Every customer starts with a single digital health check, and the model routes them to an adviser or a coach according to need.
Rather than write a specification, I built one: a working prototype, made in three weeks, that mapped the whole journey and doubled as the requirements document. We wrote the product requirements and technology recommendations around it, and ran three AI literacy sessions for the group’s executive, so the people approving the model understood what they were approving. The prototype went to the development partner as the build specification, and the proposition moved into agile development within weeks.