2024–25Imperial Service Hub
Creating a digital onboarding hub for eligible affluent clients.
Here’s how it came together
Overview
Challenge
Opportunity
Date of Project
Role
Responsibilities
- Client and advisor research
- Competitive analysis
- Business case and financial model
- Persona and journey
- Hub design and prototype
Tools
- Mobile and web prototype
- Braze in-app messaging (design)
- Business-case model
- Affluent clients not in Imperial Service
- 450K+
- Estimated commercial opportunity
- ~$54M
- Of surveyed clients chose Imperial Service once it was explained
- 56%
- Revenue per client vs. core banking (estimate)
- ~5x
A small share of clients, most of the value
CIBC Imperial Service gives affluent households a dedicated advisor for banking, investing and planning. In the internal business case at the time, 8.6% of CIBC’s clients held 56% of its managed assets, and an Imperial Service client brought in about five times the revenue of a core banking client.
So bringing eligible clients into the service had an outsized return.
Share of CIBC clients8.6%
Share of managed assets56%
About 5x the revenue per client, compared with core banking
The offer was strong. Finding it wasn’t.
About 450,000 affluent clients weren’t in Imperial Service. Most only heard of it if a branch advisor noticed and called them, many dropped out of onboarding, and advisors had limited time.
A client base that could keep growing, behind an acquisition process that couldn’t.
Before
An advisor notices an eligible client
Explains the service by hand
Coordinates a meeting
Many clients drop off, or are never called
After
Eligibility identified
An in-app card, when an advisor has time
Prototype design
The hub explains the service
The client books a meeting
Advisor meeting, then joining
Clients didn’t know what it was
With the team, I worked on client and advisor research and a competitive review. Advisors said clients rarely knew what the service offered. Shown CIBC’s wealth options side by side with $200,000 to invest, 56% of surveyed clients chose Imperial Service, and affluent clients said they wanted more digital self-service.
The proposition was stronger than the way people found it.
Who we designed for
Martin, 38
- University professor, married with children, a CIBC client for 15 years
- Goals: retirement, education savings and home improvements
- Eligible, but never contacted, and unaware the service existed
His job to be done
- “When my finances get more complex, show me whether CIBC has a higher-touch service for me, and make it easy to reach the right advisor without waiting for a call.”
Digitize everything around the advice
The hub didn’t make Imperial Service self-serve. It moved the routine steps into software and kept the advisor at the centre of the conversations that matter.
Digital handles
- Finding eligible clients
- Explaining the benefits
- Capturing interest
- Booking and reminders
- Status along the way
The advisor keeps
- Understanding goals
- Financial advice and recommendations
- The relationship
- Bringing the client into the service
From eligibility to an advisor in five steps
Inside CIBC mobile and online banking: an eligibility card (prototype design), an introduction to the service, booking time with an available advisor, a virtual or in-person meeting, then joining and moving funds.
1 · Eligible
2 · Learn
3 · Book
4 · Meet
5 · Join
Only invite clients you can serve
In the prototype design, the eligibility card (built for Braze in-app messaging) appeared only when an advisor at the client’s home branch had capacity. Creating demand you can’t serve makes the service worse.
Clients who weren’t eligible got their own path: check their status, see what the service offers and what would make them eligible, instead of a dead end. The project modelled several affluent bands rather than a single threshold.
Eligible
The card appears when the home branch has an advisor free
Learn about the service
Book a meeting
Not yet eligible
Check status from the More menu
See what the service offers
Steps that build toward eligibility, like saving and investing
A front door, not a replacement
Option A
Make it fully self-serve
Scales instantly.
Removes the advice the service is built on.
Option B
Hire advisors to call more clients
Keeps the model as it is.
Costs grow with every client, and awareness still waits on a call.
Option C
Digital front door, advisor-led advice
ChosenSoftware finds, explains and books; advisors advise.
Invitations have to be paced to advisor capacity.
The business case
We sized the opportunity from the business case’s modelled affluent pool and Imperial Service economics: an estimated ~$54M commercial opportunity, with less onboarding effort per client. It’s a modelled estimate, not realized revenue.
Modelled affluent pool
The business case’s own population
Modelled conversion
Into the service, over time
Lower onboarding effort
Digital steps before the advisor
~$54M estimated
Commercial opportunity
What it changed
- The digital onboarding hub went live in CIBC mobile and online banking
- A business case supporting an estimated ~$54M commercial opportunity
- Eligibility designed to surface in-app and be paced by advisor capacity
- Designed so advisors receive qualified, booked meetings instead of making cold calls
- Proposed using demand data to show which branches need more advisors
What did I learn?
Key takeaways
- Use software to scale the relationship around the advisor, not to replace the advisor.
- Demand and supply are one product: pace invitations to capacity.
- A not-yet-eligible state should be a next step, not a dead end.
Next time
- Validate advisor capacity and willingness to switch more deeply before modelling the upside.
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