Tom Busath

Rebel - A Modern Underwriting Platform Designed for Humans

Designing a comprehensive underwriting solution that empowers users and drives exceptional results.

Project Overview

Rebel was a transformative underwriting product for Capital One Auto Finance. I joined the project during its pilot phase and contributed to the design of core functionalities over 2.5 years. This case study highlights my contributions to key features and the overall impact of Rebel.

Official Rebel logo I designed

The Challenge: Underwriting Auto Loans

When I joined the team, Rebel was a basic underwriting product in its early stages. Critical functionality was still undefined, presenting a significant design opportunity. I played a key role in shaping the product's direction and user experience.

Key Metrics & Impact

Rebel's impact on the business and user experience was substantial:

  • +100 NPS Score Compared to Legacy System: Rebel significantly improved user satisfaction.
  • Ease of Use: "Ease of Use" was the most frequent positive comment in NPS surveys.
  • 10x Faster than Legacy System: Rebel dramatically accelerated the underwriting process.
  • COE Award: Rebel received a prestigious Capital One Excellence (COE) Award.

My Design Process: Double Diamond

I typically employ the Double Diamond design process, which emphasizes understanding user needs, defining the right problems, designing solutions, and delivering effective outcomes. This process was central to my work on Rebel.

Understanding Our Users

To ensure Rebel met the needs of its users, I conducted extensive user research and developed key personas.

Relationship Manager Personas

Based on prior empathy interviews, we created two personas that represented our primary users: Relationship Managers. These personas guided our design decisions throughout the product development process.

Relationship Manager Persona

User Research

I led user research initiatives to deeply understand Relationship Managers' pain points, goals, and jobs to be done. This research informed the design of Rebel's features and workflows.

Stakeholder Alignment

I synthesized the findings from user research into a clear and compelling presentation, including personas and a vision story, to align stakeholders and ensure everyone shared a common understanding of the product's direction.

Adapting to Change: The COVID-19 Workshop

The COVID-19 pandemic presented unprecedented challenges for our dealerships. My Product Manager (PdM) and I organized a 3-day workshop to realign our product roadmap with the evolving needs of our users.

Workshop Leadership

I led the second and third days of the workshop, focusing on:

  • Ideation: Generating solutions to address the challenges faced by dealerships.
  • Prioritization: Determining the level of effort (LOE) and business value of each proposed solution to inform our priorities.

Outcomes

Output of our workshop - a prioritized product roadmap

The workshop resulted in a revised and prioritized product roadmap that addressed the urgent needs of our users during the pandemic.

Defining the Vision

To provide a clear and compelling direction for the Rebel team, I collaborated with cross-functional leaders to create a long-term vision story (1-3 years).

Inside Sales vision story I helped craft

Key Features

I contributed to the design and development of several key features within Rebel, including SmartQueues, Exceptions, and Snooze.

SmartQueues

SmartQueues is an AI-driven feature that sorts loan applications based on their probability of funding, enabling Relationship Managers to prioritize their efforts effectively.

SmartQueues in Rebel

The Problem

Relationship Managers had limited time to contact dealerships (approximately 8% of applications). They lacked a consistent strategy for prioritizing which applications to pursue, and only 23% of deals they worked on were ultimately funded.

My Role

I collaborated with a cross-functional team of 10 people to deliver SmartQueues. My contributions included:

  • Conducting empathy research with 7 users.
  • Synthesizing insights and documenting findings in collaboration with data analysts.
  • Analyzing successful Relationship Manager strategies to inform the design.
  • Implementing the design for the SmartQueues feature within Rebel.
  • Designed SmartQueues Toggle, Probability Indicator, and Deal Linking

The Solution

SmartQueues was designed to present the most promising applications at the top of the queue, enabling RMs to focus on the deals most likely to fund.

Results

SmartQueues delivered significant results:

  • $19M Additional Annual NPV: Increased revenue through more efficient deal prioritization.
  • 60% More Calls: Enabled Relationship Managers to contact more dealerships.
  • 25% More Likely to Win a Deal: Improved the success rate of deals pursued by RMs.
  • COE Award: SmartQueues also received a Capital One Excellence Award.

Policy Exceptions

The Policy Exceptions feature streamlined the process for requesting and processing exceptions to standard loan policies.

Policy Exceptions in Rebel

The Problem

Underwriters were approving only about 10% of credit policy exceptions, even though these loans were profitable. The existing exception process was manual, cumbersome, and time-consuming.

My Role

I led the design effort to simplify and digitize the exception process. My activities included:

  • Conducting empathy research with 5 Relationship Managers.
  • Facilitating service blueprinting workshops with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs).
  • Creating future state blueprints to define the desired process.
  • Developing wireframes and prototypes to explore potential solutions.
  • Conducting user testing and iterating on the design based on feedback.
  • Designing the high-fidelity UI in Figma.
  • Collaborating with development teams to implement the solution.

A service blueprint I made to further the conversation around policy exceptions

Results

The redesigned exception process delivered significant improvements:

  • 286% Increase in Policy Exceptions: More exceptions were approved, leading to more loans and revenue.
  • 86% 'Satisfied' or 'Very Satisfied' in NPS Survey: High user satisfaction with the new process.
  • #3 Most Praised Aspect of Rebel: The exception feature was highly valued by users.

Snooze

The Snooze functionality allowed users to temporarily set aside an application and return to it later, addressing a key user need identified during the SmartQueues project.

Snooze functionality I designed to alleviate user pain

My Role

My contributions to the Snooze feature included:

  • Conducting empathy research to understand user needs.
  • Creating wireframes and prototypes to explore design solutions.
  • Conducting user testing to validate the design.
  • Creating the high-fidelity UI design.
  • Handing off the design to the development team for implementation.

Summary

Award ceremony for my first COE with Rich Fairbank

My time on the Inside Sales team, working on Rebel, provided me with a wide range of design opportunities. I was involved in all aspects of the design process, from user research and ideation to prototyping, visual design, and development collaboration.

I also had the opportunity to contribute to product strategy, address capacity concerns, shape product vision, win awards, earn promotions, drive significant revenue growth, and mentor junior designers.

It was a rewarding experience, and I am grateful for the opportunities I had.