Premier

Two years of proposition, service and experience design that took a new banking tier from market diagnosis to launch — including one evidenced fix that drove double-digit uplifts in conversion and sales.

The Problem

Lloyds Banking Group’s existing mass affluent tier — 360 — had aged badly: dated benefits, a proposition nobody inside the bank could describe in one sentence, and awareness so low that even eligible customers didn’t know it existed. Meanwhile the mass affluent segment was growing, and competitors were investing heavily in this space. The business risked losing a valuable, under-served customer group by default.

The brief: give the mass affluent segment a proposition worth choosing, backed by a service model people actually trust.

My role / the team

I led proposition and service design across the two-year programme, working with a strategy lead, a research team and delivery squads across three brands. The team took Premier from diagnosis through pilot to national launch.

What The Evidence Said

Customer interviews showed the 360 brand carried negative associations even among people who qualified for it. Competitive benchmarking found that benefits alone didn’t move consideration — service experience did. And a pilot journey-mapping exercise surfaced 21 distinct improvement opportunities, far more than any single release could fund.

The Judgment Calls

A new proposition and brand line, rather than a refreshed 360.

Patching 360 would have inherited its reputation problem. I made the case for retiring it and building Premier as a distinct proposition with its own service promise — territory closer to ‘you earned it’ than a features list — so the relaunch had a clean story rather than a rebrand nobody trusted.

A service line over a feature list.

Stakeholders initially wanted a benefits comparison table as the core proposition. I argued for leading with the service experience — relationship management, faster resolution — because that was what research showed actually shifted consideration, even though it was harder to market in a single slide.

Admitting Day 1 wouldn’t run in the background.

Some stakeholders wanted Premier to feel automatic and invisible from launch. I pushed back: Day 1 needed visible, active relationship moments to build trust before it could recede into the background. Of the 21 opportunities surfaced, we funded the seven that built visible trust fastest, and sequenced the rest.

The Design

The relationship dashboard — the first visible trust-building moment.

Premier’s service promise, restated at every key journey step.

The eligibility and onboarding flow, redesigned for clarity.

What Shipped & What Happened

Premier launched nationally across the estate. One evidenced fix — clarifying eligibility criteria at the point of consideration — drove double-digit uplifts in both conversion and downstream product sales. The programme is now the template other propositions in the bank measure themselves against.

What I’d Do Differently

I’d push harder, earlier, for a single owner of the cross-brand rollout sequencing — some launch markets moved faster than the service model could support, which created a short but avoidable gap between promise and delivery.