Option 1: Payments → send → select a contact → add a contact → create → enter name/email/mobile number manually
Option 1a: Payments → send → select a contact → add a contact → import from phone → choose name from the list or search for name
Option 2: Payments → recent payees - see all → add a contact → create → enter name/email/mobile number manually
Option 2a: Payments → recent payees - see all → add a contact → import from phone → choose name from the list or search for name
Observations:
• When importing contacts from phone, tapping on the contact name adds the contact to the list of added contacts right away – there is no in-between step to check if the contact you are about to add is actually the right one. User error results from the fact that list of phone contacts shows names but not phone or email that is used for Interac and there is no way to preview. Imagine trying to add the right person when you have five people named Alex in your contacts, each with different phone numbers and emails.
• Once added, there is no way to delete the contact from added contacts;
• The purpose of having two separate lists is unclear. Why import contacts from phone contacts to a separate list when you can import phone contacts once, asking the user for permission to constantly sync with contacts;
• If the person is not in the contacts list, their name, email and phone number have to be entered manually. There is no option to add a person without having to enter it manually, e.g. to generate/scan QR code, send a link, do shake to pay or by bringing phones together;
• The logic is that the person has to be added to phone contacts and pulled into a separate list of contacts or add a contact to payees directly. It is not clear whether adding someone to payees directly adds them to contacts;
• Too many taps involved to add a contact in the "-> send → select a contact → add a contact → create → " scenario. It is easy to imagine a simpler process;
• There seems to be no option to add a contact by voice;
• Contacts imported from phone do not have a photo of the recipient even if the contact in the phone contacts has a photo added;
• There is no way to manually add a photo of the recipient;
• Import from phone feature shows all contacts from the phone, including the ones that do not have any emails or phone numbers associated with them;
• Attempting to add a contact with a non-Canadian phone number will generate an error;
• The “scheduled” tab in the payments menu allows to schedule a bill payment but not to schedule e-transfers – scheduling e-transfer doesn’t seem to be available or I couldn’t find it;
• Unlike with contacts in the added contacts list, it is possible to delete a payee for bill payments from the list;
• Similarly to contacts, adding a picture to payees is not possible and pictures are not auto added, e.g. adding a big bank card will not have a logo of that big bank. There is an square icon for payees where this logo could sit, but there is only a letter.
• There is no way to set up a reminder to pay someone within the app;
Hi Paul, I’m reading through all the posts you’ve made this week and I’m loving it.
There’s a lot of good feedback here that I’m going to takeaway but I’ll leave my thoughts on some specific points you shared:
This isn’t a pain point I’ve personally experienced, but I just went through the import contact flow and I see where you’re coming from now. I’ll take this feedback away and see if we can add a step for reviewing and confirming contact info.
What’s your main reason for wanting to add photos to your Neo contacts? Is it about making the experience feel more personalized, or is it more about being able to differentiate contacts with similar names, like your example where you could have 5 “Alex” contacts?
You can view details about your contacts and delete them once you get out of the add contact flow, but we could make this flow easier to find. Here’s how it works now, which might not be as intuitive as it should be:
View recent payees on the Payments tab and click “see all”
Click on a specific contact
View and manage your contact including delete it from there
Here are a few ideas I have to improve the experience but let me know if you have any other ideas:
Introduce a dedicated contact list that’s easier to access.
Let you view more details about your contacts directly from the e-Transfer or bill payment screens. We’re already in the process of updating the e-Transfer screens to show you the exact email or phone number that Interac will use to notify your contact, but we could do more here.
This happens because Interac doesn’t let you send e-Transfers to non-Canadian numbers but maybe we need to make this clearer. We added this validation to the contact creation flow to prevent customers from going through the full e-Transfer flow, only to get an error at the end saying that their contact’s phone isn’t allowed. I’m going to try adding a contact right now with a non-Canadian number so I can go through the flow and think about how to improve it.
Scheduled e-Transfers isn’t available right now but I’m seeing growing demand from customers for this feature. Stay tuned…
How would you use scheduled e-Transfers? Would you set up repeat transfers for things like recurring bills and rent? To schedule a one-time transfer to send at a later date? Both?
Consider how default iPhone contacts work. There is a list of names, and tapping on them gives you a preview with more details. Tapping on things to reveal a preview is what a lot of users expect, but when users try to see a preview (e.g. to see if it’s the right Alex or if the Alex has the right phone number or email), instead of seeing a preview they have this user added to the list of added contacts.
The general idea here is to use conventions that users know instead of surprising them. Tap = generates a preview. To add a contact, you can add a plus sign on the right side of the column or something that users would intuitively associate with adding based on their experience with other apps. Another thing I would add is the alphabet on the right (see iPhone contacts for example) to enable fast scrolling to the right letter. If you have thousands of contacts, it will take too long to scroll to the right letter and users will go to search instead of scrolling, which would require more taps and manual keyboard input.
I would want to see who I am sending money to and there is no preview. If all I see is an Alex with a phone number, I wouldn’t know which Alex is that because I don’t memorize phone numbers.
This is unfortunate and hard to understand since money is ultimately send to accounts, not phone numbers or emails. Another thing here is that Canadian and US numbers share an area code so even if Neo had a preview I wouldn’t be able to tell which number is supported and which one isn’t.
I don’t know. I would like to be able to create rules (e.g. if daily account balance is over $5000, send $100 to pay off mortgage with a max frequency of once per month), but what I’ve seen from other banks is underwhelming. I would want to set recurring bills to donate to things without having to use other people’s systems that make it hard to change or unsubscribe from recurring payments.