The people behind a billion clicks

Shayne Elliott: Engineering is a really critical part of what we do. As a trained engineer what's your technical skill base and area of focus?

Jonny Oenning: I look after the stability of the ANZ app - and the team of first and second responders when something is not working 100 per cent. We proactively look after that avoidance of problems.

And my other focus, my other passion, is the delivery of new features. Enabling the rest of our technology engineers and business to deliver new features and provide the right balance between stability and delivery acceleration.

Shayne Elliott: We work in an agile way - was that something you were experienced in before you joined the team at ANZ?

Jonny Oenning: Yes, I was always very passionate about agile and the way it was delivering. It's not just a delivery methodology, I think it's a way of behaving. I think it's a way of understanding problems and breaking through multiple little pieces and working with the wider group around you to work on those things instead of waiting for someone else.

Shayne Elliott: I agree, to me it's a culture and a way of thinking as opposed to a sort of a process in and of itself. So I think it's really enabled ANZ, there's no doubt. We've still got a long way to go, we're still learning, but that's the nature of it, isn't it? One of the things you're very passionate about is our app which has been, for a while, our most visible and most used channel. Last year we had a billion logons to the app, which is just an extraordinary number. And in fact, every month that keeps going higher and higher. Now, not only are people using (the app), it seems to be that people love it. And in fact, it was recognised in Money Magazine's awards as the mobile banking app of the year. Why do you think people love our app? And why do you think it wins awards like this one?

Jonny Oenning: Our focus is to provide a great customer experience and making banking easy for our customers. The combination of having multiple features is important. But I think what's even more important is having the feature that you need at that time ready for it to use.

I'll give you a simple example: activating a card. You have debit cards and credit cards through ANZ, imagine you receive your debit card, your brand new shiny debit card on a Friday afternoon. You went shopping on a Saturday and you are in the queue, ready to pay. And you think, oh, I forgot to activate the card. In the past three years you would have had to move away from the queue and call the bank to activate the card. Right now you can activate the card on the app with a couple of taps.

So that is one of the ways the ANZ app receives those awards - having a greater customer experience, having stability as well, to be able to use what you need when you want to use it.

Shayne Elliott: That's really important and, of course, there's lots of things we could do in the app, but probably the most important people to listen to are our customers and what they want. What's the sort of feedback we get from customers and how do we use that to enhance the product itself?

Jonny Oenning: The whole team has direct and real time feedback through our customers’ social media comments today. We have, within our environment, the ability to see within minutes what our customers are saying and what feedback they're providing. And I think that's one of the important ways to listen to customers, to understand what forms any improvements.

We've had feedback through the years about customers asking for new features and “can I have this button here slightly moved because it's in the way and is not really a great experience when trying to press it?”. A number of things like that form our listening.

Shayne Elliott: Can you tell me, of all the features and I think there is over 30 new ones, what's your favourite?

Jonny Oenning: Let me let me say that, as you mentioned, we have over 30 new features. We do a feature release every month. It’s not a brand new app, it’s the same app and customers don't know as they have auto updates on their phones. They don't notice there is a new feature there. But when they want to use it, it is there.

So what is the most important one? I think they're all important. I think each customer has different needs. A customer on my previous example, a customer that needs to activate a card or change a pin. That's the most important feature for them at that moment.

Shayne Elliott: I think the work you do is fantastic. And that's proven by the fact that a billion times people have logged on to ANZ to do something - to look at their balance, to make a transaction, to activate a card, to cancel a card. And of course, the richness of that experience is only improving thanks to the work that you and the team do so thank you for that.