05/02/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 05/02/2024 15:06
The Women's Bond Club (WBC) is a New York-based, invitation-only, not-for-profit organization for women in financial services with a mission to be a powerful force for advancing women and shaping the future of the financial services industry. Founded in 1921, the WBC is rooted in the principle of "Women Helping Women."
The WBC has a goal to grow membership by retaining existing members and reaching out to potential members. Their website needed to provide an engaging user experience to enable members to collaborate and connect, communicate the WBC benefits to non-members, increase member activity, and create value for WBC members.
Protiviti collaborated with WBC members and non-members to collect feedback, design, and develop a user-friendly, intuitive site. We assisted in the modernization of the site's utility and architecture to enhance engagement. Leveraging existing technologies and an agile approach, we seamlessly integrated AI into site.
The new WBC website provides a central platform for enriching member experiences, fostering community engagement, and attracting new members by effectively communicating the club's value proposition to a wider audience.
The Women's Bond Club (WBC) is a living history of the progress women have made in the financial industry, both in New York City and beyond. Founded in 1921 by Betty Cook, one of the first female bond traders on Wall Street, the WBC was the first organization in New York to focus on the growing number of women in finance. Its members are experienced professionals and the organization's strength comes from convening some of the industry's brightest minds, building bonds that support personal and career growth.
Protiviti had previously partnered with the WBC to implement website enhancements including improvements to the member profile pages, resulting in improved member data quality and engagement with 63% of members accessing their profile and updating content. Following this collaboration, the organization then set out to redesign its entire website. WBC recognized that its existing website lacked the vibrancy and user-friendliness expected in today's digital landscape and knew that its online presence reflected the association's mission, purpose and values. For the redesign, Protiviti's digital team worked closely with over 20 stakeholders at the WBC including board members and committee members across marketing, technology, community outreach and more.
Involving the WBC's key stakeholders in every decision made throughout the process was the core of this project's strategy. By incorporating iterative learning and design methodologies, the project team actively sought feedback, deliberated potential outcomes, and quickly implemented necessary adjustments. Regular updates on design and development progress were provided to ensure seamless alignment with the envisioned WBC member experience. This proactive communication fostered a dynamic and collaborative relationship with the client, ensuring that all concerns were comprehensively addressed.
A well-defined scope and roadmap to maintain project focus, preempt scope creep, and safeguard against over-engineering solutions were also critical components of this project. All decisions were documented using a driver, approver, contributors, and informed (DACI) framework, which ensured unanimous buy-in from all key decision makers. This structured approach guaranteed that final approved design elements seamlessly transitioned into development, averting any conflicts in code implementation. Accessibility and visual appeal were top considerations -- from color palettes to image selection, every detail was crafted to create a seamless and engaging user experience.
Artificial intelligence (AI) was integrated into the process to help accelerate the process of website content creation by providing the AI tool with the specific WBC persona, incorporating organizational details and marketing content. By feeding the AI with relevant information, it was empowered to generate website content copy aligned with the WBC's identity and objectives. Additionally, AI was used to expedite some of the web design development. Iterative refinement of the generated responses ensured accuracy and completeness. Testing in a development environment allowed the team to gather feedback and further iterate until achieving the desired outcome, thereby accelerating the overall web content, design and development process.
As with any website redesign project, challenges were uncovered as the team worked to implement the requirements defined by the WBC's leadership. In this case, challenges included:
Once the new website launched, current and potential members were able to more effectively make the meaningful connections for which the WBC is known. Benefits include: