TotallyMoney: How to improve your credit score

"How do I improve my credit score?" is one of the most-asked questions on UK financial forums and in the r/ukpersonalfinance subreddit.

No matter that improving your score in and of itself is largely pointless, since it's a gamefied engagement feature to keep you coming back to use whatever app you're using to check it. People want to improve it because when it goes up, you get that hit of dopamine. It feels like you're making progress. I suppose if anything, it confirms the engagement tactic works.

During my 5 years and 8 months at TotallyMoney, I worked on multiple projects on how to help users improve their credit score in the app. One of these I've already written about, looking at score history.

TotallyMoney: Making credit score changes make sense

Explaining credit score changes to customers in a simple, accessible way.

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But in this post I want to focus more on the improvement itself, and the features I was involved in building from a content design and UX perspective.

Eligibility factors

The first version of what became known as the 'Improve tab' in the TotallyMoney app featured the 'eligibility factors', which showed customers what they could do to improve their credit score.

It was important to me, when writing the copy for these, that they were as helpful as possible while sticking to the facts. Like other credit brokers and credit reporting services, TotallyMoney is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. This means that TotallyMoney is not allowed, legally, to give financial advice.

The eligibility factors - their internal name - had to be entirely factual. We couldn't say things like 'You should try to keep your credit usage below 25%' or 'Don't close your oldest account, as this shows stability to lenders', because we're encouraging or telling the user to do something.

As a result, the factors had to be positioned very carefully. The content had to present the facts and let users make up their own mind about what to do as a result.

The content of these factors were essentially a prototype for what came next.

One problem with them was the header copy. While it signposted what users could expect to find in the card body – good for at-a-glance skim reading – it wasn't readable on its own. When reading it you can't immediately know what to do; it needs the body content for the actual 'facts'.

Rewriting the factors and 'next best action'

While the first version of the factors were getting good feedback from customers, they was more we could do.

Around a year after the eligibility factors release, we started work on upgrading the feature to add in 'next best action'.

This is powered by an API provided by TotallyMoney's credit report provider, TransUnion (TU), to show users the next action they can take which will have the biggest impact on their credit score.

Alongside needing to design new content for each next best action, this also offered an opportunity for me to rewrite what we already had, fixing the problems raised above and improving the tone of each and making them impactful and actionable.

This is clearly more understandable than the 'oldest account' content above. It's more succinct, has the info you need to know in the header than in the body, has a suggestion, which did not qualify as advice, and a reason why it improves your score.

It's also in a more supportive and empathetic tone. Some users may not be able to keep their oldest account open, for entirely understandable reasons. While we can't address each user's individual situation, we can try and be encouraging and understanding.

This one for credit usage fixes many of the same issues. The header tells you exactly what you need to know, and the body says what you need to do. I also changed the 'lenders' bit on recommendation from TotallyMoney's compliance team, who preferred the new wording.

Because the new credit report overview tab had now been developed – which I was also involved with – tapping on the cards would now take users through to see their credit usage, missed payments, electoral register status, or a number of other factors contributing to their credit score. This meant that the content on each card just needed to give a high level overview, rather than more detail.

Next best action

On the other hand, next best action was a whole different ballgame.

Much like in the score history project, TU provided us with some copy that needed rewriting and formatting to suit TotallyMoney's tone of voice and the digital space we had on screen.

Clearly this could be improved upon.

Like with score history, I put in place guidelines on writing these so they'd be a consistent set, although you'd only ever see one at a time. They also had to be consistent with the rewritten eligibility factors, as the two sets would be appearing on the screen at the same time.

Each next best action should contain, in some way or form, an action for the user to take. Clearly not being able to give financial advice would make this tricky, and would require working closely with TotallyMoney's own legal and compliance team, plus with TU, as they would need to approve the content and the wider implementation of the API.

Alongside this, each next best action would be supportive, encouraging, relatable, and optimistic in some way. These themes run throughout TotallyMoney's global tone of voice, which I was deeply involved in setting up, on the product side, throughout my time at the company.

To make the next best action messages consistent with the eligibility factors, I added a header to each.

Due to the inclusion of the last sentence, a requirement from both compliance teams, this didn't qualify as financial advice. The first sentence in the body copy was entirely factual and in line with TU's original content, albeit clearer and more concise.

While this next best action message from TU is understandable, it's quite wordy and could be clearer. It could also be more supportive and empathetic.

The problem with missed payments is there's very little an app like TotallyMoney can actually help with. It's up to the user to talk to lenders and figure something out, ultimately.

But what we can do is be understanding, supportive, and present the facts and options. For the last sentence, which isn't in TU's original version, I asked TU for the data, as I wanted to demonstrate how damaging a missed payment can be, while still presenting it in a supportive tone.

The key thing to note here is how the message has been flipped to make it more immediately actionable. The user can see the accounts using over 50% of their limit on the credit usage screen in the app; we don't need to tell them.

Instead, the message becomes actionable and active, with the second sentence telling them the effect it might have.