Designing for Need

Most CX advice assumes your job is to make customers feel something.

But in the world of banking, the goal is very different: help customers finish something.

Designing for Need introduces a sharp framework for modern financial services: separate WANT-to-do experiences from NEED-to-do ones—and stop borrowing playbooks from entertainment brands to solve task-based problems.

With an engineer’s eye for friction and a strategist’s sense for prioritization, author and financial CX expert Derek Corcoran connects behavior, process, and digital design into a single practical mandate: reduce effort, accelerate completion, and build trust through clarity.

Here, you’ll learn a language leaders can align on, a way to diagnose where “delight” is backfiring, and principles that translate directly into simpler journeys—without relying on gimmicks, jargon, or performative CX.

If you want a CX strategy your organization can actually execute—one that turns complexity into clarity and helps customers get in, get done, and get on with life—start here.

Derek Corcoran (the Fintech Fanboy) is a customer experience leader in banking. Derek has spoken at conferences across the US, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East, and has been featured in outlets such as Forbes, American Banker, Breaking Banks Podcast, The Financial Brand, and Fintech Insider. A trained mathematician, Derek brings an analytical, behavior-informed approach to reducing friction in digital journeys, improving experiences for global institutions including Citibank, HSBC, and regional banks and credit unions.Derek is an Irishman who spent almost two decades in Australia and now lives in Colorado with his wife and two sons, enjoying the skiing, fishing and biking the state has to offer.