The brief

The Building Societies Association (BSA) provides bespoke information to support their members in running their business to the best of their ability and in line with current regulatory guidelines.

Working on behalf of a wide range of audiences including the government, parliament (UK and EU), regulators, the media, and the general public, BSA's website is their most valuable resource.

They approached us with their business goals: to improve communication with their members, create an authoritative information source, create an excellent CMS author experience, and promote the sector.

What we did

BSA had three overriding objectives: member engagement, member retention, and cost reduction.

Using our active strategy approach, we quickly identified stakeholder needs as well as the end users'.

Using this insight, we created an industry-leading digital presence for BSA to better engage with members, provide additional value, reduce ongoing service costs, and provide a roadmap for continual digital innovation.

The results

There were many incremental improvements to the website that have led to bigger changes for BSA, the most notable of which were:

9.5% increase in session duration

47% increase in event registration

12% increase in page speed

7.% increase in registered online users

The Building Societies Association (BSA) is the voice for all 43 UK building societies and also represents a number of credit unions. As mutual organisations, building societies are owned by their customers, which means they operate in the interests of their members and their local communities, rather than being driven by the pressure of external stakeholders.

With a 200 year old legacy of looking after savings and providing mortgages, building societies consistently put the needs of their customers first and it's this mission that BSA helps their members fiercely protect.

With their website being the most important resource for helping their members, BSA came to us with various business goals, including:

to improve communication with members
to create an authoritative information source
to create an excellent CMS author experience
to promote the sector

The strategy

Using our active strategy approach, we quickly identified stakeholder needs and those of the end users.

See related work:

We have been very pleased with the level of professionalism and quality of product Distinction have provided. They understand our needs and our members' needs very well and we worked well together to deliver a great website.

The action

Our early work with BSA focused on a few key objectives that tied in with their longer term business goals.

Member engagement

Making it easy to register, log in, and use the website was paramount. Giving BSA the ability to communicate more effectively via integrated email marketing and role-based personalisation, pulled members to the website on a regular basis.

Member retention

Adding beneficial and effective resources to the website - that members actually wanted - was vital in adding value to the member experience and key to BSA's retention rates.

Cost reduction

Replacing BSA's previous out-of-date website, which was costly to maintain and difficult to use, meant efficiencies in both time and technology budget.

See related work:

Outcome

There were many incremental improvements to the website that have led to bigger changes for BSA, the most notable of which were: 9.5% increase in session duration, 47% increase in event registration, 12% increase in page speed, 7.5% increase in registered online users.