Community West Bank
Services we provide:
- Discovery
- Strategy
- UX/UI design
- Website development
- Xperience by Kentico implementation
About Community West Bank
CWB is a large community bank in southern California with over 20+ locations and a track record of financial strength, security and stability gained over its 44 years in business. CWB has set itself apart from other banks by its people, dedication to client advocacy, exemplary "relationship banking," strong community support and a mission to exceed expectations. With a passion for providing customized solutions, the merger drove the decision to revamp their digital services to better serve their customers.
The Process
In an era where digital presence is critical to financial institutions and mergers are frequent, the successful merger of Community West Bank (CWB) and Central Valley Bank (CVB) depended on a robust and well-executed digital strategy, critical to providing a seamless user experience for customers and employees. SilverTech, leveraging its expertise in Xperience by Kentico website development, customized a digital solution that unified the brands of these two banks into one cohesive user-friendly digital experience in just 4 months from start to launch.
The Challenges
The merger of CWB and CVB presented unique challenges, particularly in integrating two distinct digital landscapes into a single cohesive website. The biggest challenges included:
- Differing Content Strategies: CWB's site was optimized for SEO with a rich content library, while CVB's site focused more on detailed product pages. Balancing these different content approaches was crucial.
- Short Timeline: The project needed to be completed with a demanding timeline, delivering a high-quality, functional website, from planning to launch in less than four months.
- Outdated Technology: The old CWB site suffered from poor mobile optimization, slow speeds, outdated information, and a lack of interactive features. This hindered customer engagement and usability.
Goals for New Site
SilverTech identified four main goals for CWB's new website with the main goal of unifying the brands. The merger of the two banks presented a unique opportunity to take advantage of the best from both brands.
Solution and Implementation
Based on the insight gained, SilverTech devised a comprehensive strategy roadmap to address the challenges and deliver a seamless digital experience for the bank merger. It was SilverTech's recommendation that Kentico's newest hybrid CMS platform Xperience by Kentico would be the best solution for the new website. Xperience with robust features and functionality allowed SilverTech to create an exceptional digital user experience efficiently for CWB.
The Key components of the solution include:
- Unified Content Strategy: SilverTech developed a content migration plan that combined the SEO-rich content from CWB with the detailed product information from CVB. This approach ensured that the new site would benefit from both banks' strengths while avoiding duplication and inconsistencies.
- Modern Design and Functionality: The new website was built with Xperience by Kentico, featuring a modern, responsive design to enhance user experience across all devices. Key features included:
- Enhanced Interactivity: Interactive elements and engaging content to improve customer interaction and retention
- Improved CTAs: Clear, strategically placed CTAs to guide users through the site effectively
- Technical Upgrades: Faster loading speeds, improved reliability, and mobile optimization to ensure a smooth user experience
- New Functionalities: Inclusion of essential tools like product comparison tools, branch locator and more
- Accelerated Development Timeline: Despite the tight timeline, SilverTech employed agile development practices to ensure timely delivery without compromising quality. The team worked in sprints to continuously test and refine the site, leading up to a successful launch within the four-month timeframe.
HIGHLIGHTS
Azure Outage July 2024: What You Need to Know About the Recent Website Downtime
7/31/24
What is Microsoft Azure?
Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, providing on-demand Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) solutions. It enables organizations to efficiently store and manage data, enhance cybersecurity and compliance, and rapidly develop and deploy complex web applications.
What Happened?
On Tuesday morning, users started expressing their inability to access several Microsoft 365 products such as Office, Outlook, and Azure. Microsoft themselves have confirmed that the nearly 10-hour long outage was the result of a distributed denial of service cyberattack (DDoS) which was triggered by an unexpected usage spike that halted services to a standstill.
The Azure portal itself was impacted including access to web hosting plans. Reported user-flagged issues with Azure App Services, Application Insights, Azure Log Search Alerts, Azure IoT Central, Microsoft Teams, Xbox Live and other services were also affected.
Resolution
As of now, Microsoft and Microsoft Azure services are back up and running correctly. Microsoft says it will publish a Preliminary Post Incident Review within approximately 72 hours from the incident to assess and discuss the incident and what the recovery process looks like.
It is necessary for firms to have protection in place to prevent DDoS from having an impact. The initial DDoS attack had activated protection mechanisms, but an error in the implementation of defenses "amplified the impact of the attack rather than mitigating it," Microsoft admits.
Our support team is available to assist you with any concerns or questions. Please do not hesitate to reach out.
You can view the latest status update from Azure here.
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