Utmost International Combining multiple company offerings under one brand.
Utmost International is a leading life assurance group which provides solutions designed to preserve our clients’ assets and safeguard them for future generations. The company offers their services from three main businesses based in Ireland, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, all three with different websites and each servicing a different section of the global market. Utmost came to us to help create a more streamlined presentation of this offering.
The Challenge
Utmost is a leading international investment and life assurance provider. They provide Wealth Solutions products to high-net-worth individuals and Corporate Solutions i.e. group life, income protection and critical illness cover to an international client base.
Their reputation in their chosen markets is robust, but their web presence was fragmented with three product-focused websites, presenting their offering to different end users depending on what part of the world they were in and whether they were concerned with Wealth or Corporate Solutions products.
The challenge was how to merge the three different websites, all presenting the same product offerings in different ways, and in different levels of detail, into a single solution that would be suitable for all three businesses – and by extension the advisors and partners that work with them.
Our Approach
User Experience and Content Strategy
While our client had initially requested that we consolidate their three product-focused websites into two (for Wealth and Corporate Solutions), we knew we could and should do more. We recommended that we develop one new Utmost International website that would house both Wealth and Corporate Solutions as well as general financial reporting and recruitment related functions.
To achieve this, first we had to understand the needs of these businesses and their teams. Utmost work with clients worldwide to manage wealth investments and planning, employee benefits and group risk. Their world is technical but the needs that drive it are human.
We learned to speak their language so that we could make it understood without dumbing it down. Through competitive benchmarking and in-depth staff workshops we gained knowledge of their field of expertise to better deliver in ours.
Through extensive rounds of information architecture (IA) we disassembled the sitemap and restructured it into logical groups that better serve user and business needs.
Meanwhile, our content team created a clear and concise set of content guidelines that empowered Utmost employees to transform their knowledge into useful web content. Our content team also offered ongoing editorial support throughout the process including weekly content clinics.
Design
Each component of the Utmost brand had a strong visual identity, but this was not translating to their digital presence. Our brand and web designers worked together to split the brand into three distinctive visual identities; Utmost International, Utmost Wealth Solutions and Utmost Corporate Solutions. This approach created visual aids that help the user to identify where they are on the site as they navigate through it.
The three identities were then built upon the wireframes and components, creating a new design suite that lives in harmony with the brand while maintaining accessibility and standards compliance in a responsive redesign.
Development
The development process required that each component be developed in HTML, SCSS and JavaScript. These components were then built into the content management system (CMS), WordPress, along with all written and visual content.
We build a language switching interface which allows non-English users to switch to a version of their county’s content in their native language. We also developed an innovative policy-number lookup feature to help users match their numbers from their documentation with the correct Customer Support content within the site. With over 70 policy number combinations to choose from this feature has deemed to be very convenient in guiding users easily through the site to the correct content for their policy.
The Results
Utmost International have gone from having a web presence that was disparate and confusing to one that is polished, easy to navigate and user-focused.
By learning to speak their language without dumbing it down, we delivered a streamlined experience that matches the levels of service that both individuals and multinational corporations have come to expect from one of the world’s leading providers of Wealth and Corporate Solutions.