Redesigning the Club Partnership Experience

Service

UX Consultancy

Client

Bancolombia

Agency

Usaria, 2021

Agency

Usaria, 2021

Client

Bancolombia

Service

UX Consultancy

Bancolombia offers financial products through agreements with social clubs, allowing club members to use credit cards to cover expenses within the club. However, the current process relied on a disconnected platform and daily manual updates in Excel, leading to slow operations, frequent errors, and limited visibility between parties.

The Challenge

Design a unified solution that enables real-time communication between Bancolombia and its club partners—optimizing the current process and laying the foundation for scaling the service to new sectors, such as schools, gyms, and membership-based institutions.

I led the project end-to-end, from research strategy to the co-creation of the future service. My responsibilities included:

Designing and leading the research strategy alongside my team.
Conducting field observations in different clubs to identify service breakdowns.
Facilitating a design workshop with Bancolombia stakeholders to ideate improvements and define service flows.
Mentoring a junior UX designer, supporting their growth and decision-making throughout the project.

Timeline

5 weeks – discovery, field research, co-creation, service design, and prototyping.

Research statement and goals

Understand the current limitations of the club partnership model—both operational and experiential—in order to design an integrated service that improves communication, reduces manual errors, and supports future growth.

Success criteria

Real-time visibility of member status across clubs and the bank.
Fewer manual reconciliation errors and delays.
Fewer claims due to unclear billing.
Positive perception from club managers and members.

Research methodology

Contextual field observation in club operations.
Semi-structured interviews with club staff and members.
Mapping of existing service flows and pain points.
Development of user profiles and journeys.
Co-creation workshop with Bancolombia’s internal teams.
UX design of flows, key interfaces, and service roadmap.

Recruitment criteria and process

We engaged club administrators responsible for reconciliation and partner management, as well as members with varying levels of financial literacy. This helped us surface both internal process issues and customer-facing misunderstandings.

Sharing and activation

Findings were synthesized and prioritized in a design workshop using a value–effort matrix, defining actionable improvements. These became the foundation for a new integrated platform and a roadmap of operational and technological changes.

Approach

Outputs & deliverables

User profiles such as Martha (club staff) and Carlos (club member), which informed key flows.
Service design diagram with mapped actors, friction points, and a value–effort matrix to define a realistic roadmap.
UX flows and screen designs for an integrated platform allowing:
- Real-time visualization of member status.
- Centralized payment and update management.
- Support for delinquency and exception handling.

O3

Untapped competitive advantage

Although the bank had direct communication with members and managed collections, this strategic position was not reflected in the partner experience. Clubs lacked visibility, responsiveness, and operational support.

O2

Inefficient and inconsistent operations

Automatic debit processes lacked support for handling delinquencies. Financial statements sent to members were unclear, leading to confusion, complaints, and delays in payments.

O1

Lack of integration and transparency

There was no shared platform between Bancolombia and its club partners. Member statuses were updated manually via Excel sheets, often sent by email, with no synchronization or traceability.

Key findings

Business Value

Impact

This redesigned experience enabled Bancolombia to transform a fragmented B2B service into a streamlined, scalable and trust-centered model. The proposed solution:
→ Improved operational efficiency by reducing manual errors.
→ Enhanced club satisfaction by offering better communication and clearer reconciliation.
→ Expanded business potential, enabling growth into other sectors with similar needs.
→ Improved responsiveness and reduced complaint volume among members.

Reflections

This case reinforced how service design bridges internal operations, partner relationships, and end-user experience. By engaging clubs as strategic partners and designing from their operational context, we co-created a solution that not only improved efficiency but unlocked growth opportunities across the organization.