New Product Development
Building new products that solve real problems
Allied Irish Banks
Role: Product Manager (Growth Focus)
Product: Personal Loans - Digital Channels
Timeline: 2021-2022
Impact: Improved annual loan revenue by €150m through multiple customer journey improvement projects.
Website: aib.ie
Context
As the Growth Product Manager at AIB, I was tasked with improving the performance of personal loan products on digital channels (App & Web Portal).
My role here required a data intensive focus on customer journies, back by qualitative interviews to gain insights into behaviours and drop off rates.
Issue:
Personal Loan draw down rates via Phone Channels of 97% but a much lower rate of 64% on Digital Channels, which had been the norm for years.
This 33% performance deficit required addressing as the vast majority of loan applications took place on digital channels.
Approach
Diagnosed the issue with real customer data:
- Performed a review of Quantitative data on the drawdown funnel using Google Analytics and internal EDW customer data.
- Led an outbound call campaign to non-drawdown customers to gather and analyze Qualitative insights on the discrepancy.
Identified the core constraint:
- Majority of non-performing customers either didn’t realize they needed to complete an extra step, or needed assistance with tax identification input.
- Essentially this was a communication issue which was only revealed through the qualitative analysis.
Designed a low-effort, high-impact intervention:
- Working with the Marketing department I deployed targeted push messaging in the AIB Mobile App and an accompanying email campaign to clarify the next steps required by the customer, and assist with tax detail entry.
Outcome:
- Digital loan drawdown rates jumped from 64% to 86% - a sustainable and significant improvement in product performance.
- In monetary terms this represented a €150 million annual uplift in loan drawdowns directly attributable to the push and email campaign.
Frameworks & Strategic Reasoning:
- PESTEL Analysis: Recognized regulatory, political, and socio-cultural constraints (post-2008 crash environment).
- Pareto Principle: Focused on the single largest segment (60%) of the drop-off, maximizing leverage.
- SWOT Analysis: Used AIB’s strength, rapid compliance-approved communications, to deliver the campaign.
- Stakeholder Alignment: Framed communications as “service” rather than “marketing” to secure compliance approval.
Tools Used:
- Google Analytics (quantitative funnel analysis)
- Outbound calls (qualitative insight)
- Excel (segmentation and analysis)
- AIB mobile app (push messaging)
- Email (follow-ups)
Key Learnings:
By focusing on what actual customers needed - and rapidly implementing a targeted, compliant intervention - I was able to unlock a substantial and measurable business outcome for AIB.
