Inside Discover’s Free FICO Service

Spurred by stories of Steve Jobs and his unconventional approach at Apple, executives across all industries have begun forsaking consumer input when designing products. As Vice President of Worldwide Marketing at Apple, Phil Schiller famously said that, “it’s not a customer’s job to know [what they want] so we don’t ask them that.”

Julie Loeger, senior vice president of brand and acquisition at Discover, has found success by bucking this recent trend. Launched just one year ago, Discover’s it Card – a credit card that comes with no late fees, no over limit fees and no APR penalties for late payments, was crafted precisely to meet the desires of increasingly demanding credit card users.

This November, Discover once again illustrated its ability to put consumer needs front and center with the announcement that it would begin providing cardholders with free FICO credit scores as part of their monthly credit card statements
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“We have a lot of information, and what [consumers] want us to do is share that information to help them achieve their financial goals and personal goals,” Loeger explained to PYMNTS.com in an interview. “We talked to many consumers about this piece of information and we said ‘Are you interested in having this communicated to you on a regular basis?'”

The result, Loeger said, was an overwhelming positive response that led Loeger and her team to put together a program that included FICO scores, while keeping the end-product simple and straightforward.

One year after the Discover it Card was introduced, and one month after the launch of its FICO service, we regrouped with Loeger for a conversation that revealed new insights into what consumers are looking for in the market (Jump to 3:00) and what Discover has learned about marketing successful card products (Jump to 5:00).

To learn more about Discover’s FICO initiative, listen to our full interview with Loeger below.

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