To assess how well brokerage firms acquire customers looking for self-directed investment accounts, we recently kicked off our first investing sales Forrester Digital Experience Review™ (DXR). We will evaluate the functionality and user experience of 13 North American websites that target new self-directed investors. This review follows those we’ve previously done for mobile app experiences in North America and desktop experiences in the US and Canada.

This research will cover the first stages of the customer lifecycle: discover, evaluate, commit, and initiate (onboarding). The DXR methodology evaluates a brokerage firm’s website through the lens of a prospect who is looking to open a brokerage account, scoring the site across 26 criteria spanning four of the digital experience categories in the Forrester Customer Lifecycle Framework.

As part of this research, we will also create a functionality assessment tool. Digital leaders and their teams can use this tool to identify areas for improvement in their prospects’ digital journeys. By assessing elements of the digital experience yourself, you will be able to gauge the quality of your offerings versus our criteria. A heatmap in the tool will highlight areas of strength and weakness. Here is the tool we created as part of our most recent Digital Experience Review of mobile investing apps.

Forrester clients can schedule an inquiry or guidance session with me to discuss how they can enhance the digital functionality of their desktop and app experiences.