Cases 03.06.2026

OP – Developing digital customer onboarding for corporate customers

Customer experience development Customer experience Customer insight

OP is one of Finland’s best-known and most trusted financial sector operators. OP serves a wide range of corporate customers: start-up entrepreneurs, SMEs and growing companies, for whom choosing a banking partner is a long-term and business-significant decision. OP’s strengths include expert personal service, a wide range of services and a strong brand that inspires trust.

The behaviour of corporate customers has clearly changed in recent years. An increasing number of people start their services digitally: they search for information independently, compare services online and prepare decisions before the first contact.

OP recognised how central the smooth path to becoming a digital customer is for acquiring and growing new customers. It has a direct impact on both the customer experience and business results.

A strong brand, but an unclear digital path for new corporate customers

The starting point for the cooperation was the need to develop the digital customer onboarding process, especially for new corporate customers. The process already served existing private customers well, but the path of new corporate customers was felt to be cumbersome and unclear in some places. Potential corporate customers did find their way to OP’s website, but the transition towards digital services or opening a corporate customer relationship did not always go smoothly.

The challenges were particularly related to the service experience of non-logged-in users on the website, the multi-stage process of becoming a customer, and uncertainty about what it takes in practice to open a corporate account and what happens during the process. The digital path did not guide the customer forward clearly enough and did not always succeed in reducing the uncertainty related to decision-making.

Understanding the operating environment and in-depth analysis of the digital customer experience

At the beginning of the project, a strong, shared understanding of both the operating environment and the current state of OP’s own digital customer experience was built. We conducted an extensive audit of our competitors’ digital customer entry. We went through the customer journeys of key competitors, from advertising and traffic control to website content, message tips, service selection and pricing presentations. The audit helped to outline market expectations, the strengths of competitors and the areas where OP had clear opportunities to stand out.

In addition to the competitor analysis, an in-depth analysis was carried out on OP’s own website, which examined digital customer journeys based on modern theories of psychology and website behaviour. The analysis utilised perspectives on user decision-making, cognitive load, the formation of trust and behavioural control, among other things. The goal was to understand how the content, structure and interactive elements of the website affect the customer’s experience, uncertainty and willingness to move forward at different stages of the path.

An examination of the external operating environment and an in-depth analysis of OP’s own website together created a strong factual basis for the development work. They helped to identify the points where even small changes can significantly improve the customer experience.

“The content must be sufficiently usable, i.e. accessible and easy to understand. But that alone is not enough, because the content must be able to address exactly the things that are important to the customer. Therefore, the decisive factor is not what the organization wants to say, but that the customer feels heard and understands what needs to be done next. When content succeeds in reducing uncertainty, it also becomes easier to become a customer,” says Dagmar’s Content Straregist Esa Töykkälä.

Goal: a clear, guiding and effortless digital path for the customer

The goal of the project was to build a digital customer path for corporate customers that feels clear, predictable and effortless from the first contact to the opening of the customer relationship.

The focus was on the clarity and findability of the website’s content, as well as smooth guidance from one stage to the next without unnecessary friction. At the same time, the aim was to strengthen trust and reduce uncertainty – especially in the areas where business decisions are prepared and alternatives are evaluated. The goal was to make digital transactions not just an option, but a genuinely attractive and easy way to start cooperation with OP.

Co-creation and knowledge transfer as part of operations

The project also deliberately wanted to invest in the rapid development of the competence and capabilities of OP’s own team. For this reason, the work was carried out from the beginning using a co-creation working model, in which OP’s experts were actively involved in all phases. The customer journeys were not just described as finished results, but they were modeled, analysed and developed together.

“A great example of how developing the customer experience is not just the responsibility of the CX owner. Individual stages of the customer journey can be improved where they are carried out – when different functions utilise customer-oriented principles and tools in their own operations. Here, the digital customer journey serves as a good example: it can be either an effective driver of growth or a critical bottleneck for the start of the entire customer relationship,” says Sirpa Toljander, CX Director at Dagmar.

During the workshops and analyses, the customers’ goals, emotions, pain points and crucial meeting points on the digital path were identified. At the same time, OP’s team learned in practice how to describe digital customer journeys at a suitable flight altitude, how to assess the smoothness and friction of the paths, and how to prioritise development measures from the perspective of customer and business value.

Thanks to co-creation, the knowledge and expertise generated in the project were genuinely transferred to OP’s team. At the end of the project, OP’s experts were able to independently model digital customer journeys and plan measures to streamline them as part of continuous development work.

The basis for continuous development

As a result of the project, OP gained a clear and customer-oriented view of how to develop the digital customer journey. At the same time, a strong foundation was created for continuous work.

Digital customer acquisition is an ever-evolving entity that OP’s team is now able to take forward independently and systematically in a changing operating environment.