Overview

The advisory acquisition journey is how JPMorgan Wealth Management turns prospective clients into advisory relationships. But the old flow wasn’t designed around client mindsets, and it showed. Prospects were overwhelmed with dense content, unclear about what to expect in calls, and often dropped off before booking a meeting.

I led the design of a vision state for prospect acquisition, showing how we could move from fragmented flows and unclear calls-to-action to a seamless, personalized journey. This vision was validated with clients and stakeholders, then scoped down into an agreed MVP for delivery teams to execute.

Framing the problem

The existing acquisition experience wasn’t designed with prospects in mind. Our audit of current flows and research with clients revealed four key problems:

1. Navigation and discoverability: Prospects struggled to find advisory services through Chase.com and the app. Advice landing pages were buried, and drop-offs spiked at each entry point.
2. Information overload: Content was dense and generic, creating choice paralysis rather than clarity.

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do here…there’s just too much information.”

3. Unclear expectations: Many prospects didn’t know what would happen after they submitted a form or scheduled a call.

“If I don’t know who I’m talking to or why, I’d rather not schedule the call at all.”

4. Pricing transparency: Legal and compliance processes made it difficult to communicate advisory pricing clearly, leaving prospects skeptical about what they’d be committing to.

From a business standpoint, these issues limited qualified leads and slowed advisor pipeline growth, directly impacting revenue goals.

How we approached it

We began with an audit of existing prospect flows, mapping where users dropped off and how poor navigation and discoverability limited entry into advisory. We learned that we shipped our internal org structure instead of helping our prospects find what’s right for them.

We ran stakeholder assumption mapping, experience mapping with clients, and synthesized findings into a journey map.

Strivers: These clients have medium confidence, control, and competence. They often feel overwhelmed by financial decisions and seek guidance to build confidence and manage life's uncertainties. Barriers for Strivers include a lack of clarity in financial planning and a need for frequent touch-points to build trust and understanding.

Thrivers: These clients exhibit high confidence, control, and competence. They prefer to maintain control over their financial decisions and seek expert management to optimize their wealth. Barriers for Thrivers include a desire for detailed information and control over the advisory process, as well as skepticism towards generic advice.

The solution

The vision state redesign introduced a personalized acquisition journey that addressed both prospect mindsets and business goals.

What we saw

Even at the MVP stage, we saw strong results:

• +13% increase in start rate across tested pages.
• +32% lift in form submissions.
• Positive usability feedback: prospects appreciated clarity, personalization, and the ability to set expectations.

For JPMorgan, this meant higher-quality leads, stronger advisor pipelines, and a scalable foundation for future acquisition innovation.

What’s next

The next phase is sequencing toward the larger vision developed in research. This includes expanding personalization frameworks beyond Strivers and Thrivers, deepening pricing transparency, and building more advanced advisor-matching features.