In recent articles, we’ve explored the many ways in which DXPs can power the online presence of banks and associations and improve the customer experiences they provide. In this chapter, we’ll dive deep into one such transformation: when TowneBank turned to Americaneagle.com to migrate its site to Kentico and was able to increase goal conversions by 224% while revolutionizing its content management capabilities.
National bank with a local focus
Established in 1999, TowneBank has grown to become one of the largest banks ever chartered in Virginia. Today it has over 1200 employees working across 49 banking offices throughout Hampton Roads, Central Virginia, and Northeastern and Central North Carolina, and offers customers a competitive array of business and personal banking solutions and other nationally recognized financial services at the local level, such as investments, home buying, and insurance.
Backed by more than $14 billion in assets, TowneBank is intentional about being a local leader in each community it serves, actively promoting social, cultural, and economic growth and providing millions of dollars in local, community reinvestments, charitable support, and loans.
Time for empowerment
TowneBank wanted to modernize its overall website design while maintaining its brand look and feel. It wanted to move away from its old content management system (CMS), Sitecore, towards a solution that was more cost efficient, easier to use, and would empower their content team.
Their editors were struggling with publishing content in a timely manner and frequently required the help of developers to update the site. Their content management capabilities were restricted by the complexity of the Sitecore platform and cumbersome third-party integrations. Licensing fees were also mounting up.
TowneBank enlisted the help of long-standing digital partner, Americaneagle.com, and the two organizations chose Kentico for its ease of use, range of features, scalability, and cost savings. The interface of Kentico had a similar appearance to that of Sitecore (lending itself to a shallow learning curve) but gave them far more direct control over content management and marketing tools. This would bring down overall costs for IT support and increase the speed with which editors could publish content. What’s more, the lower annual license cost would bring significant savings.
No limits to innovation or creativity
After performing the site migration, Americaneagle.com implemented a variety of features that would greatly enhance TowneBank’s capabilities and user experience.
As the bank’s many locations cross city and state lines, they wanted to ensure that users were seeing the correct information based on their location. So, Americaneagle.com added a widget that would allow content authors to add personalization to individual content blocks based on a user’s location. The new location search also allows the browser to automatically read a user’s location so it can plot nearby TowneBank locations and for users to pin their favorites in the header and searches for easy access.
The Americaneagle.com team also redesigned the online banking enrollment process to make modifying data easier for editors and to improve user experience. They also integrated with DocuSign to allow electronic and print-and-scan enrollment forms.
The new form submissions allow users to return to their in-progress submissions when convenient and shows users personalized tips as it guides them in their choice of online banking products. Users also receive customized emails based on their chosen account and products as well as reminders to complete any saved forms.
To ease content authoring while also increasing the amount of content and resources available to users, Americaneagle.com integrated several third-party tools, including YEXT to power the site search, SB Resources to provide financial help articles to customers, Google Mapping APIs to power location search features, and Dinkytown to power the site’s calculators.
TowneBank website tour video
Watch this video to learn how Amercaneagle transformed the TowneBank website
An amazing result
TowneBank’s migration to Kentico has resulted in improved user experiences for both front-end and back-end users.
The new website retains the TowneBank brand in look and feel but has a more modern and audience-focused information architecture. By reorganizing the site with usability and UX improvements in mind, there has been a significant reduction in the number of calls to the call center.
The newfound flexibility of the website allows TowneBank to customize their messaging according to their unique business goals and objectives. Moreover, the enhanced usability and flexibility of the website have enabled TowneBank to seamlessly pave the way for in-person conversions, providing a smooth transition from online interactions to offline interactions.
Kentico Page Builder has revolutionized TowneBank's operations by empowering editors to construct pages from scratch, leveraging a wide selection of widgets available in their library. With an extensive range of options, including callouts, biographical listings, FAQs blocks, and related resource widgets, editors now have the flexibility to create dynamic page layouts and incorporate diverse messaging. They can effortlessly incorporate various callouts, modify color schemes, and even embed videos within hero callouts, thereby enhancing the overall user experience. What’s more, previously un-editable areas of the site are now editable.
Not only did the new site increase goal conversions by 224%, but the new site saw a 60% increase in average session duration and a 58% decrease in bounce rate.
It was apparent from the initial inspired, can-do attitude of the TowneBank and Americaneagle.com partnership that this project held great potential. That makes celebrating this award-winning website, together, extra special.
Winners of Site of the Year 2021
TowneBank's website won the Kentico Site of the Year 2021 award in the Finance category.
Not only did it deliver an outstanding digital experience for its users, but the website also showcases the Americaneagle.com team’s excellence in creativity, innovation, content modeling, and use of technology. The digital excellence is no provides appropriately reflects the level of service TowneBank provides.