Industry
Executive Search
Client
Banff
Executive Account planning
Help executives plan their career with goals along the way
My role
Lead product designer
Project time
~3 weeks
Results
90% of clients have plans after 3 months
50% reduced meeting prep time
About Banff
Banff is a tech-enabled client services company, managing and advising both top-tier executives as well as investors and other enterprise clients. I joined in September 2023 to lead design for our web platform that directly serves our internal team and enterprise clients and directly impacts executive clients.
As part of regular strategic user research to help steer our product roadmap, I began interviewing our Executive clients. I found frustration in their experiences with Banff around communication and guidance. Executives needed more transparency into what Banff is doing for them. The first step to solve this problem was to solve the issue of infrastructure and workflow for our internal team.
Client operations needed structure for strategic account planning to improve reporting, communication and an enhanced overall client experience. This design initiative focuses on creating a scalable, user-centric system that supports day-to-day client tracking and planning.
Previously, Banff Advisor lacked a centralized and structured way to manage client goals, related activities, and overarching account plans. Teams relied on spreadsheets, Notion documents, and inconsistent methods, leading to lost insights, missed opportunities, and inefficient workflows. There was previously no space in our web app for tracking a client's progress towards their goals, which limited the company’s ability to deliver proactive, high-quality client service
Key Research Takeaways
#1
Clients want to see what Banff's services have done for them so far
#2
Internal team were spending hours preparing for client meetings
#3
Internal team had no insight into clients goals and why we were doing certain activities for clients
Designing service processes
In order to uncover inefficiencies and persistent internal workflow issues, I led a collaborative service design mapping session with the client operations team. This bird’s-eye view enabled the team to see beyond silos, revealing friction points, breakdowns in communication, and untapped opportunities.
Frontstage actions: The frontstage lane represents the touchpoints with the customer, whether it is a tool or a person. These actions are visible to the customer.
Backstage actions: The backstage lane represents the elements of the service that are invisible to the customer, such as internal processes, technology, and staffing.
Support processes: Support processes are the internal processes that support the delivery of the service
Problem Metrics
How do we know that we're doing a good job? What information can we track to ensure we're on the right path? The below metrics were some of the problem metrics to confirm that we an issue on our hands of inefficiency and disorganization We shot for a 25% reduction in meeting prep time and an 80% success rate of active client account plans.
Time it takes internal team to
prepare for individual client meeting
Building a framework to answer questions
In order to improve clarity and communication with our clients we needed to improve organization internally first.
I added a tab “Account plan” under an executive’s profile where our internal team can add new goals, activities and tasks.
The features on this page answer the following questions and painpoints:
What are we helping this executive accomplish?
What are the introduction outcomes of our activities?
Is that good?
What have we done towards this goal thus far?
What does the internal team still need to do?
Adding a nimble search menu
The search menu I added here helped our internal users navigate an extensive collection of activities and information with a tab approach across the activity types and truncation for each individual activity category.
Impact and Next Steps
The newly designed executive account plan has transformed how client management teams set and track goals, coordinate tasks, and maintain strategic focus on high-priority accounts. By providing a clear, organized framework for outlining objectives and actionable steps, the plan has improved transparency and accountability across teams. Early adoption has led to more proactive client engagement and streamlined communication, helping to strengthen relationships and drive better outcomes. Moving forward, the framework will continue to evolve based on user feedback, with plans to integrate analytics and automation features to further enhance client management efficiency.