Challenge
Washington State Employees Credit Union (WSECU) wanted to modernize its web experience demonstrating its commitment to community and creating a "digital branch" that is just as efficient and helpful as its physical branches.
With the exception of a minor refresh to its homepage in 2009, the WSECU website was last fully redesigned in 2004. WSECU was using both a CMS and an external knowledge base for website information and had just recently opened the knowledge base to multiple authors. All of this resulted in a mass of uncontrollable, difficult to search, and often outdated information. In addition, the site was not optimized for mobile, something members and potential members expected from their financial institution.
For WSECU, community was its biggest focus. It wanted a website that not only provided the products and services information it offered, but demonstrated WSECU's commitment to its community (both the one around the corner and the greater Washington State).
Solutions
The new WSECU website was designed by Gravitate, a design agency out of Vancouver, WA. Ingeniux collaborated with Gravitate on design best practices and co-developed the website with WSECU staff on the latest version of Ingeniux CMS. WSECU wanted to ensure it could maintain and continue to evolve the website on its own, with support from Ingeniux.
WSECU envisioned its website as community hub that strengthened its bonds with the city and neighborhoods. Using social media vignettes, pulling in posts from Instagram and other networks connects what is happening in its physical branches with its virtual branch. Expert blogs from employees make the banking experience and website more people, and human-oriented, delivering on WSECU's unique brand position and culture.
One key element WSECU leveraged in Ingeniux was its robust taxonomy, schemas and content blocks. WSECU hadn't reused content before, so the ability to create content once and display it in different web pages is something it is taking full advantage of.
WSECU Digital Marketing Lead Victoria Hallock said, "With the power of taxonomy and tagging we are able to make sure the right content is displayed on the right pages. Ingeniux gives us the flexibility we need and also helps us stay in compliance."
Overall the new website delivers an immersive experience with large imagery and moving graphics. The bold graphics and design deliver a cinematic experience on large desktop PCs and collapses elegantly into a beautiful and functional mobile experience. For WSECU, working with Ingeniux didn't feel like working with a vendor. It felt like it was working with a true partner, whose knowledge and leadership enabled it to do what it needed for this project and future enhancements.
Since the launch of the new website in April 2015, WSECU has seen increased time on the site and a growing increase in new traffic.
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