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- Outdated Technology: The old CWB site suffered from poor mobile optimization, slow speeds, outdated information, and a lack of interactive features.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
Understanding Digital Terminology
5/12/21
Stay in the loop with the most popular digital technology terms in the industry
We’ve all been there. You’re sitting in a meeting or having a conversation with a colleague when they suddenly drop an acronym you don’t know in the conversation. You nervously play it off like you know exactly what they're talking about and immediately Google it once they walk away.
When talking about topics surrounding digital technologies, it can feel like everyone is speaking a different language with the large number of acronyms and nicknames used daily. But what used to be an awkward and confusing interaction, no longer has to be. We have complied a list of the most popular acronyms used in digital marketing so you can stay in the loop and on top of the trends. Check them out below!
Content Management System (CMS)
Content management systems enable web developers to manage content on their website, without having to know any code or programming language. A CMS typically includes features like managing pages, blog posts, images and videos; creating landing pages and lead capture forms; building product catalogs and e-commerce stores with checkout process flows; and more.
Digital Experience Platform (DXP)
Gartner defines a DXP as "an integrated and cohesive piece of technology designed to enable composition, management, delivery and optimization of contextualized digital experiences across multi-experience customer journeys." This means you can take the best from CMS or WEM platforms with deeper integrations that come within an all-in-one experience.
Digital Experience (DX)
The digital experience, sometimes referred to as the digital user-experience (DUX), is that feeling an end user takes away with them after a positive or negative interaction in a digital environment, usually based off the design and content they can interact with on their mobile device.
User Experience (UX)
The user experience is the user’s interaction with your services, products, and brand. A good user experience should result in increased customers, loyalty and most importantly sales. The best digital experiences are those that come from focusing on the users. Who are they? What do they like? Is the experience consistent across all digital platforms? If you are a marketer, you should be asking these questions.
The user experience also involves the user journey. The user journey is the step-by-step process the user takes to reach their goal. This usually involves the number of website pages that are visited and the decision points prior to meeting the goal. For some websites the goal is to fill out a form and for others the end goal is to make a purchase.
Web Experience (WX)
Similar to the user experience, the web experience is the use of skills needed to carryout activities on the web. This can involve searching for information, interacting with sellers, making decisions, and purchasing products. A web experience platform delivers a different experience for every visitor based off data which is used to personalize the UX.
Personalization is the act of tailoring an experience or communication based on information a company has learned about an individual. The web experience uses what companies learn about their prospects and customers to give them the best UX.
Enterprise Content Management System (ECM)
The Enterprise Content Management system is a combination of the strategies, processes, and tools used to capture, manage, preserve, store and deliver content/information to customers, employees, and stakeholders.
Web Content Management System (WCM) or Web Experience Management (WEM)
The social web has become more powerful than ever before, but with this booming popularity came a need to change the CMS. This new "Web Experience Management" provides personalized and user-friendly websites that are better for business integration as well.
Digital Asset Management (DAM)
Digital asset management (DAM) offers an effective solution for enterprises to store, organize, find, retrieve, maintain and share digital content. The DAM is quick to deploy and easy-to-use, often automated. It is a centralized digital library providing controlled access to digital assets including images, photos, creative files, video, audio, presentations, documents and more.
Employee Experience Platform (EXP)
With an Employee Experience Platform, employers are able to customize the look and feel of their employee experience program. By taking control over these aspects without actually replacing your HCM application or ATS, you can create a personalized digital workplace for staff members that is accessible, simple and easy to use.
Don’t have the time to keep up with the growing list of acronyms surrounding digital marketing? Partner with SilverTech and let our team of strategists, developers, designers and marketers do the heavy lifting for you. Contact us and learn more about what SilverTech can do for your business!
