In this #mtpcon keynote, Jose Quesada, Amex VP of Product Management (mobile and web) talks about how the highly successful Amex mobile app is developed.
Amex Mobile has been on a quest to set the standard for mobile apps, and this means they look beyond their immediate competitors in the financial services industry. The look and function of the Amex app is very different from a standard financial app, Jose says, and it looks more like a social media app and Amex research finds its customers are becoming increasingly satisfied when they use it.
It’s been a continuous evolution, and Jose has been working on the app for more than 10 years. The app has a global scalable architecture so features and functionality can be launched very quickly. The product team strives to balance enterprise and customer needs, Jose says, and this team is crucial to the success of the app. “A great team is not just an awesome product team,” he says, “it is product, design, engineering, analytics and even stakeholders.”
The Amex product recipe
Jose then shares the Amex “product recipe”. He says you need to ideate, grow and evolve. This means you start with solving a problem or finding an opportunity. Then you develop hypotheses, test them and pivot as needed. If data starts to look good you ask “now what?” and repeat as needed.
Jose says this process is underpinned by a culture that encourages autonomy and focus, and Amex is a big believer in the squad-based model. He says the notion of one team, one dream, with product design and analytics working together is crucial as is the desire to keep evolving.
Most recent work
Jose then talks about some of the most recent work on the app. There were too many features and this was creating pressure on discoverability and engagement. He says: “A little bit of friction sometimes is helpful.” Amex has also started to move into banking products, so it was a good time to scale the framework beyond card products and support future growth.
They used a parallel discovery track to envision and ideate without an impact on the business. They did all the experimentation in the UK market because it’s smaller than their US market, and this was very valuable, says Jose. “We had a bunch of key hypotheses on discoverability on engagement and kept a very close eye on the data… once we were confident we released the changes in chunks.”
Design as an enabler
Jose then highlights the importance of design as an enabler of their work. They created a native design language to bring together the best in class look and feel and mobile patterns, he says. “It also helps with development, cross functional collaboration and consistency for customers.”
He concludes: “We transformed the overall experience. There was no disruption, we improved CSAT, we leveraged the UK app to test our hypotheses with no impact on the US market.” The next step is to work on a coherent Amex family of apps, which need to work with each other and help each other: “They all need to have a very clear value proposition.” he says.
