Why ask branch and frontline teams separately from head office?
Because they see the website differently, and often feel it was built for head office rather than for them. That tension is worth surfacing before the build rather than after.
Blog
When your own staff call the website 'frustrating', listen
Ask the people who use the website before anyone redesigns it. When I asked the staff of a long-established investment firm to describe its website in one word, sixty percent chose "frustrating". Its clients were as clear about what they wanted: online share dealing, better portfolio tools and an account area that worked on a phone. Research with staff, branch teams and clients shows what the site is for and where it fails, and it can settle strategic questions a design discussion never reaches.
Why do website redesigns so often fix the wrong things?
Because design is visible, feels like progress, and everyone has an opinion on it. When an established firm decides its website is tired, the usual next step is to hire someone to make it look better. The project becomes an argument about aesthetics, the loudest or most senior taste wins, and a year later the firm has a prettier version of a site that still frustrates everyone.
Nobody had asked what the site was for, who used it and where it let them down, and a designer cannot answer that. You have to go and ask.
Who should you ask before a rebuild?
Your staff, your branch or frontline teams, and your clients. When I audited the digital side of a long-established investment firm, the most useful thing I did was ask its own staff to describe the website in a word. The word that came back most often was "frustrating": sixty percent of them reached for it, with "confused" and "disorganised" close behind. The main positive was "professional", which is the word people use when they cannot think of anything nicer.
Staff know exactly where the site fails, because they field the complaints and work around the gaps. Branch and frontline teams see it differently again, and often feel it was built for head office rather than for them, which is worth surfacing before you build. Clients tell you what they want, which is frequently not what the firm assumes.
What can that evidence decide?
The big, nervous questions. The investment firm had been agonising over whether to offer online trading. Its clients had already answered: they wanted online share dealing, better portfolio tools and an account area that worked on a phone. Once you know what staff struggle with, what branches need and what clients ask for, the brief largely writes itself, and decisions such as moving into a new service stop resting on opinion. When your clients start asking your competitors for what you do not offer, it is later than you think.
Related evidence: A stockbroker whose own staff called its website "frustrating", handed a plan to catch up.. Next in this journey: A review with no actions is an invoice.
Questions people ask
What does a rebuild without research usually produce?
A prettier version of a site that still frustrates everyone, because the project turned into an argument about aesthetics and the most senior taste won.
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