Turning a one-off credit tool into
a partner's daily routine
A credit tool salespeople opened once per customer. I turned it into a daily habit for partners, from shop-floor teams to business owners, by starting with experiments that cost almost nothing.
Context
Partner Portal began as a tool for creating and signing credit applications. It served that purpose, but supported only one user role: salespeople. Other partner teams had limited ways to use it.
Research pointed to an opportunity: support more roles and give partners reasons to return beyond individual credit applications.
BUSINESS MODEL
Sales-driven product
To request new products, business owners first have to discover them, then contact the bank’s sales team. The monthly newsletter does little to help them discover what’s available.
14.6%partner newsletter open rate
DECISION-MAKERS
Couldn't self-serve
In shops that work with multiple credit providers, salespeople have little reason to choose us over competitors. We can’t offer cash incentives, and loyalty alone isn’t enough.
↓3.5%daily contracts drop after cash bonuses were cancelled
BACK OFFICE
Manual and slow setup
Adding a user took up to 3 days — once, 6 months, lost in a thread. Slow onboarding, frequent errors, constant support load.
3 working daysof waiting to add new employees
Impact
+15%more contracts created by partners
−40h/monthfor the partner support team across 5 offices
30 minto install Inbank payment methods
Solution
Attract
decision-makers
If business owners or store managers have a reason to open the Partner Portal, it gives us another upsell channel, since regular salespeople don't make business decisions.
Motivate sales people
Hence, cash bonuses are out of budget, and we cannot become a monopolistic loan provider; we need a relatively cheap, doable way to motivate them.
Gamification
The gamification idea was kicking around, but it got stuck on “we need a complex system, smth like Duolingo has”. According to research, tangible rewards incentive programs have been shown to boost sales performance by as high as 22%.
MVP-1
Banner and lottery
To test the idea, I proposed launching a sales competition with a png-banner, without any backend development and comparing the number of generated contracts before, during and after the competition.
MVP-2
User profile and leaderboard
Achievement list in the user profile and a fully functional leaderboard for managers, with the possibility to request a sales competition.
Conclusion
The Partner Portal didn’t need to become a large platform all at once. It needed a few useful reasons for different people to return: recognition for salespeople, relevant tools for managers, and a clearer way to manage teams.
I started with the smallest tests we could ship.
I started with the smallest tests we could ship.
+15%more contracts from partners during sales competition
−40h/monthsaved for partner support across five offices
30minto install Inbank payment methodsInstead of manually copying and pasting parameters
These results supported further investment—not a claim that the work was finished. The next step is to repeat the competition with a larger dataset, compare results by partner vertical, and track whether reactivated users stay active.
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