Concept testing a new savings product for a financial services provider
The proposition tested well on paper. In the room, a consistent pattern emerged: customers liked the product but didn't trust the category enough to act on it. That's a different problem to solve.
A product launch that needed more than market sizing
A regional financial services provider was preparing to launch a new flexible savings product targeting working adults who had savings capacity but weren't engaging with existing savings products. Internal research had confirmed the market opportunity. What it hadn't done was explore how potential customers actually thought and felt about the category - or what would need to be true about a product for them to take action rather than remain interested but inactive.
The product team had developed two distinct propositions with different positioning, rate structures, and access terms. Both were commercially viable. Neither had been tested with the people they were designed for. The brief was to understand which proposition connected more strongly with customer reality - and why - before committing to a launch direction.
Structured exploration across customer segments
Participation Studio recruited participants across two distinct customer segments: existing customers of the provider with some savings history, and non-customers who matched the target demographic but were not currently engaged with savings products. Running separate groups for each segment allowed direct comparison of how the same propositions landed with people who had an existing relationship with the provider versus those who didn't.
Each focus group used a structured discussion guide that moved from attitudes to saving in general - surfacing the emotional and psychological context before any product concepts were introduced - through to detailed reaction to each proposition, including the specific language, rate presentation, and access terms.
Concept materials were presented in two formats: a brief written summary designed to replicate how customers might encounter the product through marketing, and a more detailed breakdown designed to replicate the experience of reading terms before signing up. This allowed comparison between first impression and considered evaluation - a distinction that proved significant in the findings.
What the research involved
Interest without intention
Both propositions generated genuine interest - participants responded positively to the rate and the flexibility. But when the conversation moved to whether they would actually open an account, the same hesitation appeared across both groups: a low-grade but persistent distrust of financial products that promised simplicity, rooted in prior experiences where simplicity turned out to be conditional.
The research identified a trust gap that wasn't specific to either proposition - it was a category-level issue that the product's positioning would need to address before the rate and features could do their work. Customers weren't sceptical about this provider in particular; they were sceptical about promises of simplicity from financial services providers in general.
Between the two propositions, one performed consistently better - not because it offered a better rate, but because its access terms were expressed in language that participants found easier to hold in their heads. The simpler mental model reduced the cognitive burden of evaluating trust, which turned out to matter more than the marginal rate difference.
The gap between first impression and considered evaluation was pronounced: both propositions generated stronger reactions in the marketing-format presentation than when the detailed terms were introduced. This pointed to a specific communication challenge in the transition from attraction to conversion.
A sharper brief for product and marketing
The research gave the product team a clear direction: launch the simpler-framing proposition and build the communication strategy around addressing category-level trust rather than differentiating on rate alone. The trust gap finding reshaped the marketing brief, shifting emphasis from product features to transparency and track record.
The detail-versus-marketing-format finding directly informed how the product's terms were written for the launch materials - with specific attention to the language that customers had described as reassuring versus the language that had triggered doubt in the focus groups.
We fully recognise the effort your team invested in recruitment, moderation, and analysis, and we genuinely appreciate the quality of the discussions and reporting.
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Trusted PPI and PPIE delivery partner to the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Accelerated Surgical Care.
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