iPay Technologies

Experience Designer

A down-home solution for comfortable and profitable growth

SITUATION

iPay Technologies is a financial services software company that allows community banks and credit unions to offer on-line bill-paying services to their depositors. In 2004, iPay was a young start-up with a handful of industry veterans and only a few years of operating history. They were struggling to make it on razor-thin margins in a relatively new, and highly competitive, space. But Managing Partners Mike and Dana Bowers were visionaries, who calmly explained that they was projecting the company to double in size over the next two years, then grow 10-fold over the next 10 years. It was then they realized that their Elizabethtown, KY-based company (located an hour south of Louisville) would need help 1) building a strong brand experience framework, and 2) creating a way to attract top category talent to a small, rural town.

OPPORTUNITIES

• Build a brand experience platform to withstand significant, fast-paced growth while maintaining the company’s down-to-earth values, work ethic, and small-company feel.
• Attract new management team members from much larger firms by motivating them so much with the iPay culture that they would be enticed to relocate from much larger cities.

SOLUTION

The plan architecture evolved over several years, as the company prepared itself for new front-end products, new back-end infrastructure, new offerings and all the changes that come with fast-paced growth and business success. Mike proposed a brand framework consisting of a Reason for Being, Governing Principles, Emotional Outcomes, Roles and Accountabilities Design, Brand Story, and Experience Design.

If an undertaking of this nature were to be successful, it would take two things: full management support and buy-in, and integrated employee participation. At iPay, there were both.

We worked on-site in Elizabethtown, initially facilitating numerous small group discussions, one-on-one interviews, management team meetings, and absorbing hundreds of pages of information about the category, the company, what worked, and what didn’t. We listened to call center calls, reviewed sales visits, learned from customers, and interfaced with employees on the challenges of doing their day-to-day jobs. Throughout, we moved from “where not to go” discussions to “what if” discussions.

Most importantly, we determined that the “customer” was no longer the platform technology provider, but the actual end-user paying their bills through iPay’s technology. From that epiphany, an RFB was crafted, declaring that iPay exists to make electronic bill-paying easy and hassle-free by providing experiences that everyone raves about.

As internal discussions progressed, operating anomalies were discovered and dealt with, a challenging exercise requiring employees to remove themselves from their own job title comfort zone to determine what was best for the company.

Throughout the process, individual employees came to understand how they had to interact with others in the organization, particularly as it related to client requests. Employees learned they were responsible and empowered to negotiate the terms of those interactions, as long as the company’s new Governing Principles were met and the RFB was achieved for the customer.

Finally, when it came to experience design, we mapped a path for new employees, from recruitment advertising and interviewing to the hiring process to positioning them to be a mentor to future new employees. All of which was designed to rapidly develop relationships, communicate the company’s support for employees, and infuse them with a feeling of accomplishment from the day they accepted the job.

RESULTS

Within 18 months, iPay grew its client roster from 348 to 715, and its total employees from 45 to 122. All growth was organic, not through acquisitions.  Today, iPay is the largest independent provider in its space, with 40% market share among community banks, 50% among credit unions, 3,700 accounts, and 250 employees. In May of 2010, iPay was sold for $300 million to Jack Henry & Associates.

The company is also growing by about 20 employees a month, and Mr. Bowers notes that they “have attracted employees with stronger skill sets and a greater sense of responsibility and service.