Amex Search
Summary
As American Express added checking, savings, and more digital features, its account-by-account navigation made the mobile app increasingly difficult to explore. I led the zero-to-one design of app-wide search, giving customers one place to find features, transactions, offers, and support across accounts. When search could not return a direct result, it carried the user's intent into chat instead of leaving them at a dead end. Search users showed 30% higher chat usage, 6% fewer call-ins, and 5% higher self-service.
Challenge
Make content easier to discover across the app and across accounts, helping customers complete more tasks through self-service.
Outcome
- +30%Higher chat usage among search users.
- -6%Fewer app-first customer calls from search users.
- +5%Higher self-service among search users.
My Contribution
- Defined an app-wide search strategy across product and support content.
- Positioned search as a global navigation tool rather than a feature within one screen.
- Connected unsuccessful searches to self-service support without losing the user's intent.
Inventory of mobile content
Early concepts
I explored ways search could anticipate users’ intentions before they even searched and help guide them when search fell short.
Landing Page Vision
The landing page surfaced popular actions and increased awareness of buried features.
Promo Content
In beta testing, we found one of the top user search categories was for timely promotional content.
Recent searches and type ahead
Search Everything
Results return various content types from features to transactions, offers, and a graceful hand-off to chat.
Dynamic Content
The landing screen adapts to different product strategies.
Outcome
Search users saw a +30% increase in chat usage, a -6% drop in call-in rates, and a +5% increase in self-servicing.
The preliminary metrics showed promise. Adding search with an integrated chat feature could significantly lower servicing costs.