We enhanced Zilch’s retention and engagement without altering their product, but instead by applying behavioural science to how the product is used.
Zilch is a disruptive fintech app with over 5 million UK users and the official partner of Arsenal Football Club.
The complexity of Zilch was becoming a major barrier to sustained growth. The app was overwhelming users with 30+ features with no regard for cognitive load.
Key features were surfaced at the wrong moments in the customer journey, failing to align with users’ psychological needs during onboarding and early usage.
We addressed these challenges across onboarding, early-life journeys, and permission strategies by rebuilding the experience around how users actually think and behave.
Financial Services
UK
Simplify a complex product experience to improve onboarding, activation, and early-life retention.
We conducted a comprehensive review of Zilch’s customer journey, analysing how and when features and benefits were presented. It became clear that the breadth of the offering - while valuable - was driving high drop-off due to cognitive overload.
We combined journey analysis with internal brand research to identify the gap between Zilch’s intended value proposition and its perception by both customers and employees.
From the need for safety during sign-up to reassurance during exploration to confidence in early transactions, we mapped the evolving psychology of their users across their journey. Rather than asking “what features are valuable?”, we focused on “what features create value now without overwhelming the user?”.
We redesigned key touchpoints to align with users’ psychological needs and reduce friction throughout the customer journey.
The onboarding and early-life experiences were simplified to present only essential information at the right time. Features that created premature friction were removed or repositioned. We also restructured email and in-app messaging to build confidence and encourage habit formation, positioning Zilch as the default payment method for everyday spending.
This was all backed up by the data system findings and focusing on the key behavioural biases influencing decision-making, including present bias, loss aversion, mental accounting, anchoring, and optimism bias.
This is where we translated behavioural insights into a practical framework for Zilch’s internal teams. Including a “cheat sheet” to guide messaging, ensuring alignment with the cognitive biases that shape customer perception and decision-making.
These principles were then applied consistently across onboarding flows, in-app experiences, customer communications, and permission strategies - creating a more coherent and psychologically aligned experience.
This approach will now be used across their product marketing and forge a bit part of their strategy going forward.
Our research demonstrated that the key to engaging this audience is not to overwhelm them with features, but to frame what they need to know to reduce perceived risk and cognitive overload.
Customers don’t disengage because a product lacks value; they disengage when that value is difficult to process. By applying behavioural science to how Zilch’s offering was presented - without changing the product itself - we significantly improved retention, activation, and long-term engagement.
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