Reloading the Target RedCard

Does free food taste better? Apparently, it's up for debate - there are conflicting opinions, from a Cornell study to passionate online discussions. But let's be honest, free stuff is great, as long as no animals or humans were harmed in the process. So, when Target offered $40 off a $40 purchase (when getting a new Target card) - practically giving away money - I figured why not, let's give it a go.

The Target RedCard Reloadable is exactly what it sounds like - it's a prepaid debit card that let's you spend up to the amount explicitly added to the card, and you can add money to it at any time. Hence reloadable. The funds, we were told in a Target email, can be added a number of different ways - using cash at a Target store, via direct deposit (wow, really? clever, but a direct deposit to a Target card? seems a bit out there), and a bank account:

Bingo. Adding from a bank account was what I was after. Let's open the RedCard website, or the app, and get that money loaded - so we can go shopping.

Less suck

Except there is no option to use a bank account on the website or in the app. Wait, didn't the email just tell us it's one of the ways? Here were the direct deposit option (still blows my mind), and the cash option, and a couple of other seemingly unusual options - but there wasn't one for a bank account:

Of course, you will say, a direct deposit works very much in the same way as a bank transfer - you just need to know the routing and the account numbers. Which's exactly why I was surprised to see the direct deposit option so prominently featured, while the bank option was nowhere to be found. At this point, I was equally curious and annoyed - both anxious to find evidence of the elusive finding source as well as use it. To the credit of the fine people at Target, I ultimately discovered a modest honorary mention in their help documentation https://www.redcardreloadable.com/faqs/money-in/adding-money. While it wasn't a full, unambiguous set of instructions I ultimately wanted, this short statement was better than nothing:

In the end, the process was straightforward. I put 2 and 2 together, used the Direct Deposit instructions, which included the routing and account numbers, to set up and execute a transfer from my bank account.  But would other customers be able to understand this and accomplish the task with ease?

Product manager's thoughts

At first, my frustration had the best of me. After all, it seemed silly that the option advertised in the email was so conspicuously missing from the app. I blamed carelessness and poor design. What was the Target team thinking?

But then it occurred to me that this might be intentional. It seemed too obvious and too sloppy for the Target team (which, I bet, is highly skilled and experienced) to have done this negligently. The more reasonable explanation is that the target customer (no pun intended) for this card is either less likely to have a bank account, or transfer money from one. If the Target's market research bore this out - as I hope was the case - then it makes sense not to clutter the screens with unnecessary options. As in: "sure, the bank account option is available if you want it, but we know you are not likely to use it, so we are going to get it out of your face".

Another thought is that this is designed intentionally to steer customers away from bank accounts and toward direct deposits. Direct deposits, of course, are stickier - once you have them set up, you typically don't mess with it. If Target is able to get their customers to do that, it's a pretty good bet this "set it and forget it" trick will keep those customers funneling money to their Target cards and spending them in Target stores.

More awesome

These are the only reasonable explanations I can think of. I refuse to believe that the team at Target simply overlooked this while designing the experience. The rest of the experience appears to be well thought out and functional, at least so far. And yet, the product manager in me is feeling uneasy. Both the website and the mobile app have plenty of space to add one more funding option icon, without degrading the experience or significantly increasing the customer's cognitive load. Nor do I think that adding the bank option would detract from other business goals - like direct deposit recruitment. Furthermore, this would ensure consistency between the customer experience and their emails and help documentation. Consistency in user experience is key to setting and managing expectations, and avoiding customer confusion and frustration - just ask the experts here or here, or countless others. Just Google "consistency user experience" with millions of search results.