PURCHASE, N.Y. — A total revamp of Quorum FCU's website has resulted in an average of 750 new users each month and three design awards from leading media and marketing associations.
"While members can do their banking via an automated phone service, deposit-taking ATM or shared service branch, the vast majority of our members choose to bank online or on their mobile device," said Quorum FCU VP-Marketing & Member Services Kimberly Schade. "This was the impetus to creating a new online and mobile experience that was simple, modern and engaging."
Every three years Quorum FCU has updated or upgraded its website. The last reboot was in 2010. So in 2013, the bells were ringing again. However, this time it decided to take a different approach, in part, because Alkami Technology became the CU's new online banking vendor.
To better understand what members wanted, the CU also offered a ForeSee Survey Platform to determine what was working for members and what needed tweaking. "Our site also needed to be on par with the best financial institutions in the industry, since this is how the majority of our members bank with us," said Schade.
With survey responses in hand, the 12-branch, 117-employee CU next looked to seven design agencies that would take the lead. After an exhaustive RFP process, that group was cut to three. In the end, the New York-based Adventure House was selected.
No More Frontloading
"Credit union banking websites typically utilize the home page of a website like a newspaper front page, trying to frontload as much information as possible. This created cluttered designs with confusing hierarchical relationships," said the firm's president, Alexander Acker. "The appeal of the Quorum website is its simplicity. From the overall user experience and creative design to flexible layout tailored to mobile, tablet and desktop computers, the goal was to create a transformational website experience."
In working with Adventure House, Quorum FCU realized many changes. The overall concept was a clean, bright, minimal website that reflected usability best practices and represented a responsive design that would allow members to engage the site with the device of their choosing.
"Changes included an updated logo and typeface and involved re-branding workshops, to be sure that our new, modern look and feel better reflected who we are," said Schade. "We moved away from trying to put every piece of information on a page and simplified any chance we got. This resulted in a 50% reduction in pages."
Schade said the CU's brand promise to its members is not to sell all things to all people. So the new design focuses on a menu of curated products, namely, checking and savings, credit cards and mortgages.
Along with the website redesign, Quorum FCU's online banking experience was overhauled. This step was taken to ensure that there was continuity between the corporate site and online banking. As a result, navigation has been streamlined and more intuitive. Members also have the option to customize their online banking homepage or dashboard.
"They also have access to new features like budget-tracking and savings goals tools," said Schade. "To complement online banking, a robust mobile banking app for both iOS and Android was developed, which features new tools like mobile deposits and mobile bill pay."
Adventure House's Interactive Designer, Nathan Crandall, said changes in Quorum FCU's website mirror changes in the banking industry as a whole.
"Millennials are becoming a force within the consumer base, and they care about design, usability and self-service," he said. "Creating websites that can provide a quality member experience with minimal help from company staff is more important than ever. And with significant increases in mobile and tablet devices, the website user experience needs to be reconsidered for smaller, touchscreen devices."
Winning Results
After internal testing and tweaks, the new website went live on March 25, 2014. "The corporate site, online banking and mobile banking services were extensively beta tested in all browsers, apps, and devices in the months leading up to launch," said Schade. "The entire company participated."
And while Schade said there was an initial drop in user satisfaction, since April, member satisfaction has increased by 30%.
"The phone calls we've received have also been positive, noting the modern look and feel, and ease of use," said Schade. She added that the CU is adding approximately 750 new online banking users each month. "We have nearly 29,000 online banking users of which 27,900 are active, which is nearly a 98% activity rate."
To date, the most popular website features include mobile deposits, mortgage calculator, bill pay, budgeting and savings tools. Another favorite feature is "Balance Transfer Calculator," which allows members to calculate how much they will save by transferring their balance to a Quorum Federal Credit Union credit card.
And members are not the only ones taking notice. Quorum FCU received the Interactive Media Awards' (IMA) "Best in Class" award in the Financial Information category for its newly redesigned website. The CU was also acknowledged for a 2014 W³ Award, a silver award winner in the category "Website Features: Structure and Navigation." It nabbed 2014 "Outstanding Website" Award from the Web Marketing Association, as well.
"We were delighted that out of the three awards we entered, we won an award in each," said Schade. "Since then, we've submitted to the Webby Awards, and have our fingers crossed we will place in that as well."
When asked what was one of the biggest lessons Quorum FCU learned during the process, Schade said the willingness to be open to new perspectives.
"You cannot work in a silo. The roundtable meetings we had to initially determine look, design, and functionality were integral to the success of a website," she said. "You also have to be ready to evolve — or even start over — once you incorporate the perspective from outside vendors and agencies."
