Estate Settlement: Transforming a Complex, Emotional Journey

Imagine you’ve just lost a loved one, and now you’re responsible for settling their estate as the executor of their will—a process filled with legal, financial, and administrative complexity. Many executors find this journey overwhelming, often taking 18 months or more to complete.

For RBC Royal Trust, this was not just a client experience issue—it was also an operational challenge. Employees were burdened with manual processes, leading to inefficiencies, repetitive tasks, and communication breakdowns.

To design a people-first strategy, we needed a deep understanding of both client and employee pain points.

🔹 29 in-depth client interviews → Executors and beneficiaries shared their emotional and logistical struggles, a first for RBC's trust & estates division.

🔹 21 employee contextual inquiries → Advisors and backstage support teams revealed inefficiencies and process gaps.

🔹 Service blueprinting → Identified the most frustrating moments and critical breakdowns in communication & collaboration.

🔹 Behavioural personas and mental models → Captured different user mindsets (e.g. "The On-the-Fly Executor" who needs just-in-time guidance).

✅ Key Insights: 

📌 Executors didn't need more information upfront—they needed a clear, digestible, step-by-step roadmap to guide them through the process over time.

📌 Executors experienced inconsistent communication from advisors—some received proactive updates, while others felt left in the dark. Many employees also lacked clear engagement guidelines, leading to uncertainty and frustration. A standardized approach was needed to ensure consistent, empathetic client support.

With these insights, we brought together cross-functional teams in participatory design workshops—including design, business, technology, and internal users—to co-create solutions. 

Key Innovations:

💡 'Artie' digital executor helper → Provides personalized guidance to keep executors on track without overwhelming them.

💡 Personalized Estate Journey Projection → An interactive roadmap within Artie that guides executors step by step.

💡 Employee Platform 'Elroy' → Streamlines and automates risk review, account setup, and key document generation, freeing employees to focus on human support.

During co-design workshops, we also identified that beyond digital tools, advisors needed structured guidance on client engagement. This led to the development of the Client Experience Playbook, ensuring consistent, empathetic communication at every step.

✅ Result: A future estate settlement journey focused on clarity, efficiency, and empathetic human support.

Once we validated our concepts, we focused on bringing them to life through testing and iteration.

🔹 Artie (Executor Helper) → Helps executors navigate estate settlement tasks at their own pace.

🔹 Elroy (Employee Platform) → Reduces manual tasks so employees can focus on complex cases requiring empathy.

🔹 Client Experience Playbook → Equips employees with best practices for engaging with clients proactively and consistently throughout an estate including communication frequencies, mandatory touch points, and templates with empathetic messaging for each interaction.

✅ Outcome:

📉 Reduced estate settlement times by streamlining workflows.

📈 Higher client satisfaction due to timely, structured guidance, reducing confusion and uncertainty during an already difficult time.

✔ 2,000+ estates supported since 2021 using Artie & Elroy.

✔ Faster estate resolution, reducing the percentage of cases exceeding 12 months.

✔ Higher client satisfaction and trust—executors felt better guided and supported.

✔ More consistent client engagement—advisors had a structured approach, leading to fewer gaps in communication.

✅ Beyond the numbers: By providing both digital tools and a structured client engagement framework, we ensured executors felt less overwhelmed, employees collaborated more efficiently, and the entire process became more transparent and predictable.

As a result, this initiative transformed a stressful, disjointed experience into one defined by clarity and trust.

Lessons Learned

🫶🏽 Empathy is key → Executors are not just users; they are grieving individuals who need emotional support as much as functional guidance.

🫱🏼‍🫲🏿 Automation should enhance—not replace—human connection → Tools like Elroy freed up employees to provide higher-value, empathetic service.

😌 A structured journey reduces stress → Executors need clear steps over time, not a flood of information upfront.

Final Thought

This initiative proved that UX research and service design can humanize complex financial processes, making them more intuitive, efficient, and emotionally supportive.