Mobile Credit Card Dispute

Result

25,000 customers disputed a card charge in-app in the first month. That saved $375,000 in contact-centre costs, and the feature was on track for ROI in about four months.

Role

Product Designer · BMO Bank of Montreal · 2020

I designed the mobile dispute experience end to end: research with the Customer Contact Centre dispute team, wireframes, usability testing, and the progressive-disclosure flow that shipped in the mobile app after UAT.

Meet people where they already look: the transaction

Krystal has banked with BMO since childhood. She spots a $99.99 charge she doesn’t recognize, taps the transaction, and sees “Dispute this transaction.” That’s the story we designed for.

Research: over two-thirds of testers started the flow from the transaction under the credit card account view, not a separate credit card management screen. So we put dispute initiation on the transaction itself, matching the mental model.

Ask why first; let the form get shorter

Desktop web banking already supported disputes; mobile did not, so customers called. The dispute team’s process had also moved on; the old digital questions hadn’t kept up.

Reason up front

Loads context-specific questions and sets how many steps follow.

Progressive disclosure

Less cognitive load than one long form; a visual overview of steps sets expectations.

Review and edit before submit

Fix mistakes without calling.

Prove the pattern with the team who answers the calls

Primary research mixed dispute-team interviews with in-person usability on early wireframes. The team flagged questions that confused customers and suggested improvements we folded in before build.

Usability: over half favoured progressive disclosure; all testers completed that variant over the long form. Wireframes iterated with testers and the dispute team; then mobile implementation and UAT.

Outcomes

• 25,000 customers completed a dispute digitally in the first month after launch
• $375,000 saved in the first month (average cost per contact-centre call)
• Estimated ROI in about four months (project cost vs call cost vs usage)

Why this mattered

Disputes are stressful and time-sensitive. Giving customers a path that matches how they already scan a statement cut phone dependency and aligned digital questions with how the contact centre actually worked.

Learnings

• Entry point beats polish: wrong start screen kills the flow before the form matters.
• Progressive disclosure won outright in testing. Don’t ship the long form “just in case.”
• Partner with the ops team early; their confusing questions are product bugs.

One thing that did not work

The long-form dispute variant. Testers preferred progressive disclosure; everyone completed that path over the long form. We dropped the long form rather than offering both.