Engine Room Maximizes User Experience and Personalization to Enhance Financial Planning Education Services

Executive Summary

Engine Room partnered with client The American College of Financial Services, a leading company focused on providing financial services education to professionals and organizations, to provide them with the latest technology in personalization and e-commerce, putting TACFS at the forefront of their industry. The American College of Financial Services sought out expertise in Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) and web development to leverage all new technologies to streamline their online presence and create a better user experience for customers. This complex project is helping TACFS become a leader in the industry.

 

Web Property Redesign and Personalization

Engine Room streamlined three TACFS web properties to be high-quality, user-friendly pages. In the beginning, TACFS had disparate sites (marketing, enrollment, and student portal) with resources, information, and services scattered across each site. This led to consumers not knowing what services existed or were related to TACFS. In collaboration with a web design partner, the marketing and enrollment sites received a UX upgrade and were transitioned to an industry-leading personalization platform (Acquia DXP). This rebuild also involved moving away from Drupal 7 and upgrading to the latest software.
Engine Room independently led the thoughtful UX redesign of the student portal page to improve the accessibility and personalization of students’ courses. The team used extensive wireframing to track the flow of user experience possibilities and to proactively identify opportunities for enhanced design. This attention to detail brought the student portal experience to the next level. It allows students to easily find the information within their personalized portal, supporting their educational experience and reducing customer service center call volumes.

 

Flexible Platforms for Individualized e-Commerce

Many of TACFS’s partners offer these courses to their employees. However, the information and communication flow for each organization is unique, which can complicate customer purchases. When overhauling the marketing and enrollment pages, Engine Room transitioned to the versatile and best-in-class Shopify framework to build a platform that could be easily modified for each client. Harnessing Shopify’s adaptability further optimized the personalization of the website and e-commerce experience, increasing purchases and consumer access.

 

Personalization for Marketing and Goal Attainment

The American College of Financial Services has a primary goal of becoming a leader in financial planning certification. Personalization is a powerful way to propel a company forward, as tailoring messaging to your target audience helps increase the chance of consumers making a purchase, with a 20% increase in customer acquisition. Engine Room focused on increasing the personalization of the TACFS marketing page to promote lead generation and student enrollment.
Using a “crawl, walk, run” approach, TACFS’s personalization evolves in stages. Engine Room’s efforts focused on first establishing a solid, successful “crawl” phase to situate TACFS for continuous growth. By first defining key audience messages and then applying that messaging to the web design, Engine Room provided TACFS with a foundation for personalization that will continue to benefit and grow with the company in the future.

 

Redesign Launch and Planning

Engine Room spent months collaborating with The American College of Financial Services to develop and refine their launch plan. The plan consisted of a nearly 100-step deployment process to meticulously prepare for and anticipate the launch needs. Ultimately, the diligent preparations and committed partnership paid off, as this was one of Engine Room’s largest and smoothest launches to date.
The final results of these web design applications have been promising, with overwhelmingly positive post-launch feedback. Additionally, any improvements have been quickly and easily implemented due to the efficient and flexible design of these web platforms.

 

Expertise in Managing Multiple Stakeholders

In addition to the technical workload, Engine Room was met with multiple involved stakeholders, each with different priorities and ideas. Engine Room successfully partnered with stakeholders to navigate opinions while prioritizing the best decisions for the TACFS’s goals. Centering The American College of Financial Services’ objectives and applying the latest technology allowed Engine Room to tackle a large technical load while balancing stakeholders’ needs.

 

Client Testimonial

“Engine Room is a supportive, collaborative partner in our digital transformation over the last 18 months. The outcomes-driven firm focuses on the end desire and works back to fill in the necessary details needed to get there effectively and efficiently.” – Jared Trexler – SVP, Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer

 

Partnering with Clients to Reach their Goals

The complexities of this project began as challenges and resulted in great achievements for Engine Room, and TACFS. Enhancing three websites to yield a cohesive high-end, industry-leading digital presence can be a large task on its own. In partnership with TACFS, Engine Room managed to do this while also upgrading their web technologies, enhancing UX and web personalization, and ensuring the site would grow with TACFS into the future.
Months of pre-planning, troubleshooting, and collaboration resulted in a successful site launch and, more importantly, a significantly improved customer experience. With increased consumer access to their valuable resources, TACFS is poised to continue their ascent to industry-leading success.

Schedule a free consultation to find out more about how partnering with Engine Room can enhance your digital presence.