Building better customer communications with Barclays

1 December 2017

Jamie Halliday*, Director, The Behavioural Architects and Emma Williams**, Barclays recently co-hosted an MRS Speaker Evening to showcase how behavioural economics can be applied to drive more effective customer communications.

Barclays and The Behavioural Architects have pioneered a programme within Barclays Premier that has been so successful with its customers they are now rolling it out more widely across the business. Using rigorous analysis of customer behaviour – grounded in behavioural science and in-context customer research – the team created a simple but effective way of structuring and developing communications which has been implemented through workshops, training and toolkits across Barclays' teams.

During the course of the evening Jamie and Emma looked at how Behavioural Economics can be applied:

  • in the design, implementation and analysis of research
  • to optimise communications for a real impact on response
  • to upskill and empower staff to apply behavioural economics tools and techniques in their everyday roles

They also talked through an example of turning customer insights into a toolkit that allows the research to live on across the business.

This approach has helped to bring about a cultural shift in how customer communications are devised within Barclays Premier. It has seen a real increase in desired outcomes from key communications to customers, and senior stakeholders have been so convinced of the benefits of behavioural insights that the programme is now being rolled out across the wider Barclays business, driving real commercial impact.

*Jamie Halliday is Associate Director at TBA. He has consulted on a range of communications optimisation projects with Barclays since 2015. With a background in psychology, Jamie joined TBA in 2013 in order to align his passion for behavioural science with his experience as a research professional. Prior to TBA, Jamie was Research Consultant at FreshMinds Research.

** Emma Williams works for Barclays in Service Design. She is a research professional of over 15 years’ standing, beginning her career with Ipsos MORI before moving client-side, firstly with Vodafone and then Barclays. Whilst in the Barclays Insight team, Emma championed behavioural economics as a complementary tool to traditional research. She has recently moved from Insight into Service Design, where she uses insight and BE tools in planning and designing best-in-class experiences for the Premier segment.

















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