Client Research and Service Design for the Estate Settlement Experience
RBC Wealth Management set out to reimagine the end-to-end estate settlement experience for executors and beneficiaries. The initiative focused on reducing pain points, streamlining operations, and designing a client experience that delivers clarity, control, and support while strengthening RBC’s market leadership.
My Role and Responsibilities
As Senior Manager, Design Research & Strategy, I led the end-to-end service design process within the design thinking framework. My responsibilities ranged from problem framing and discovery research to service blueprinting and future-state visioning, ensuring alignment between client needs and business goals.
Facilitated stakeholder alignment workshops
Designed and Conducted Discovery Research
Synthesized research findings into personas and journey maps
Developed service blueprints and future-state journeys
As Senior Manager, Design Research & Strategy, I led the end-to-end service design process within the design thinking framework. My responsibilities ranged from problem framing and discovery research to service blueprinting and future-state visioning, ensuring alignment between client needs and business goals.
Facilitated stakeholder alignment workshops
Designed and Conducted Discovery Research
Synthesized research findings into personas and journey maps
Developed service blueprints and future-state journeys
Stakeholder Alignment Workshops
I facilitated stakeholder alignment workshops to build consensus on problems and their priorities. A key outcome was the establishment of Objectives & Key Results (OKRs), which anchored the program, created accountability across multidisciplinary teams, and ensured that design and research efforts kept aligned with business priorities.Facilitated stakeholder alignment workshops.
Qualititative Research
I designed and conducted in-depth interviews with 29 executors and beneficiaries, and validated the findings with subject matter experts.
I applied thematic analysis to cluster participant stories into recurring themes and validated the prioritized findings with subject-matter experts. This work uncovered critical pain points, including communication gaps, administrative stress, and process inefficiencies that complicated the estate settlement journey.
Qualititavie Research
I designed and conducted in-depth interviews with 29 executors and beneficiaries, and validated the findings with subject matter experts.
I applied thematic analysis to cluster participant stories into recurring themes and validated the prioritized findings with subject matter experts. This work uncovered critical pain points such as communication gaps, administrative stress, and inefficiencies that created friction in the estate settlement journey.
Ideation and Co-Creation Workshops
I co-facilitated workshops with technology and business stakeholders, along with Royal Trust frontline employees who work directly with clients. Together, we prioritized the problem statements, ideated solutions, and evaluated them based on feasibility and viability.
The ideation workshops generated 20+ ideas, which I clustered into themes and scored with stakeholders against CX impact, SME popularity, and implementation effort. Through this synthesis, we collaboratively identified the strongest opportunities, which became the cornerstones of the short-, medium-, and long-term roadmap.
Qualitative Research
I designed and conducted in-depth interviews with 29 executors and beneficiaries,
I applied thematic analysis to cluster participant stories into recurring themes and validated the prioritized findings with subject matter experts. This work uncovered critical pain points such as communication gaps, administrative stress, and inefficiencies that created friction in the estate settlement journey.
Co-Creation Workshops
After defining the problem statements, I facilitated workshops with technology and business stakeholders, as well as frontline employees who work directly with clients. Together, we prioritized challenges, generated solutions, and evaluated them for feasibility and viability.
The workshops generated 20+ ideas, which I clustered into themes and evaluated with stakeholders against CX impact, stakeholder support, and implementation effort. Through this synthesis, we identified the strongest opportunities, which became the foundation of the short and long-term roadmap.
The ideation workshops generated 20+ ideas, which I clustered into themes and evaluated with stakeholders against customer experience impact, stakeholder support, and implementation effort. Through this synthesis, we identified the strongest opportunities, which became the foundation of the short-, medium-, and long-term roadmap.
Key Outcomes
Experience Requirements for Agile Delivery
Converted the vision into actionable requirements for delivery teams
Future-State Vision & Service Blueprint
Aligned stakeholders on a client-centered roadmap to guide implementation.
Strategic Outcome
Business Outcome
Informed executive decisions to modernize estate settlement, strengthen trust, and improve efficiency.
Equipped executives with insight-driven direction to elevate client experience and drive business growth within pre-defined budgetary constraints.
Requirements for Agile Delivery
Converted the vision into actionable requirements for delivery teams
Future-State Vision & Service Blueprint
Aligned stakeholders on a client-centered roadmap to guide implementation.
Strategic Outcome
Informed executive decisions to modernize estate settlement..
Co-Creation Workshops
I co-facilitated workshops with technology and business stakeholders, as well as frontline employees who work directly with clients. Together, we prioritized problem statements, generated solutions, and evaluated them for feasibility and viability.
hdehmeshki@gmail.com
hdehmeshki@gmail.com