Designing Targeted Support Final Report - Flipbook - Page 12
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Consumer Comfort with the Process
Consumer acceptability is a prerequisite for any real-world application of attitudinal Targeted Support. To
assess this, participants were asked to rate their comfort with the questions they were asked during the
journey, on a 0–10 scale. Average comfort scores were high across all groups: 6.89 in the control group, 7.54
for the demographics treatment, 7.61 for UK preference, 7.36 for risk tolerance and 7.62 for return
expectations, indicating that participants were generally comfortable answering these questions. Scores
were slightly higher among those who received calibrated recommendations, suggesting that the perceived
usefulness of the questions may enhance engagement.
A majority of individuals followed the Targeted Support recommendation they
received, in the sense that the recommended fund received the largest share of their
allocation. Among those following the Targeted Support recommendation, the
majority chose to invest the full £10,000 in the recommended fund, suggesting high
levels of comfort with following attitude-based recommendations. In the
demographics-only treatment, 53 out of every 100 participants followed the
recommendation. This rose to 66 out of 100 for the UK preference treatment, 65 out
of 100 for risk tolerance and 63 out of 100 for return expectations. These higher
compliance rates for attitudinal recommendations suggest that consumers find recommendations more
compelling when they reflect their own stated attitudes and preferences, rather than being based solely on
demographic characteristics.
Caveats and Further Research
The results presented here come with an important caveat. The experimental design uses a hypothetical
saving and investing scenario in which participants were not financially vested in their decisions. While the
survey-based experiment closely resembled a standard consumer journey – with realistic fund options,
allocation screens and recommendation formats – it cannot fully replicate conditions under which real
consumers make decisions with real money. In a real-world setting, consumers may pay more careful
attention to recommendations because they have more at stake, which could amplify the effects observed
here. Equally, real-world inertia and – at times- the complex nature of financial products may moderate these
effects. The precise magnitude of the treatment effects is therefore likely to depend on factors specific to
the real-world implementation.
This study represents one of the largest survey-based experiments of its kind in the UK consumer investment
space, with a sample of nearly 5,000 participants, a pre-registered design and randomisation across
treatment arms. The consistency of results across multiple treatment arms and
alignment with the earlier TISA risk warnings study provide confidence in the
direction and general magnitude of the effects. Further research in real-world
consumer journeys would be highly valuable. A trial conducted on a live
investment platform would provide direct evidence on the efficacy of attitudinal
Targeted Support in practice, and could also test features not examined here,
including the effect of a time delay between collecting attitudinal information
and providing a recommendation, and the persistence of the effects over time.
April 2026
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