Stott Hoare
Company Overview
For nearly 150 years, Stott Hoare has put customer satisfaction at the heart of every solution delivered. Technology has changed but our approach hasn’t. Always striving to be early adopters of technology, we find the right solutions for our clients that help drive efficiency, productivity, and innovation. As a locally-owned WA technology company, Stott Hoare offers clients expertise, advice, and service in addition to robust fit-for-purpose technology.
Role
Branding
Copywriting
Content Strategy
Storytelling
User Research
Website UX
Project Overview
Challenge
From early discussions, one of the biggest challenges uncovered was a lack of clarity on the unique selling points, services, and products the business provides. Who is Stott Hoare? What do they do? And how can they help me?
Problem
Through user research and content analysis, the biggest issues identified were:
- Users struggled to identify what Stott Hoare provided beyond a hardware solution.
- Heavy blocks of content, technical jargon, and poor website UX/UI led to a frustrating web experience.
- A lack of support and education for a complex service offering on the website, in addition to inconsistent messaging, poor website UX, minimal content, and an undefined audience.
Solution
Uncover the driving forces behind Stott Hoare to redefine and reposition the brand, define and develop target customer profiles, and create a seamless website UX to direct users where they need to go with concise messaging and engaging content.
Impact
Educating and assisting users of all levels on how to unlock value in their technology strategy with an end-to-end solution that drives efficiency, collaboration, and productivity in their organisation.
Project Details
From initial research and learnings, IT and technology solutions is a complex world filled with technical jargon and can be confusing to those who aren’t directly involved or familiar with operations.
Through business discovery and customer journey mapping, I was able to identify unique selling points directly related to user goals, pains, and desires. This led to crafting powerful messaging and engaging content that assisted all users in finding a technology solution in a language they could understand and resonate with.
High-level goals for this website project were:
rebrand and reposition
To uncover and develop Stott Hoare’s brand story through a messaging framework to give the business, its people, its customers, and stakeholders complete clarity on who the company is and what they stand for.
Develop a Brand Story & Messaging
To connect with their customers and build relationships with more relevant messaging, and enable sales teams to have more engaging conversations with better quality leads.
Develop new Services & Product pages
Articulate new and complex modern IT technology solutions in a clear and concise manner that is relevant to the user and the impact it has on their organisation and business.
Deliver a Seamless Website User Experience
Create a seamless way for users to easily identify how Stott Hoare can help them unlock value in their technology strategy, going beyond just a hardware solution.
Brand Discovery
Uncovering the Brand DNA
In its simplest form, what are the short and sharp statements that define who Stott Hoare is, what Stott Hoare does, and why Stott Hoare do what they do. These statements help form the foundation for brand messaging and positioning, and contribute to uncovering their true vision and mission for the company.
Conducting brand discovery workshops, I had to first take into consideration how the brand was perceived by internal teams and their customers, and what was their preferred future positioning.
Current Brand Sentiment
- Internal View
Solving people's IT problems, making their lives easier, and providing technical advice and support, as well as supplying, deploying, and managing hardware, services, and devices solutions. - External Perception
Reliable partner for hardware, user devices, technical advice, and support. - Future Positioning
Focus on helping the individual and become a technology partner that everyone can rely on for all their future IT needs.
Brand DNA
Why
To simplify technology and empower people to do their best work.
How
By going above and beyond to deliver creative solutions that strengthen the organisation and empower the individual, and make them feel that we are the technology partner they can rely on.
What
Providing innovative technology solutions to improve collaboration, productivity and experiences.
User Research
Defining target customer segments
Through customer mapping workshops, we were able to identify and develop three target customer profiles. Based on insights from their sales teams, we established three primary segments: IT Manager, Business Owner, and C-Suite Executives.
While mapping out the buyer's journey of each individual using the customer mapping tool UXPressia, we were able to uncover key goals, desires and objections, in addition to questions and processes related to the service and product.
Shared User Pains
Common themes that guided the messaging
With the main customer segments established, it was time to explore what key messages Stott Hoare would use to connect and communicate with their audiences. I started the process by listing out common pains, desires and needs of each customer persona, taking note of anything they shared in common.
Brand Messaging
How to tell a good story
With a new brand DNA, customer profiles identified, and messaging opportunities, it was time to develop a brand story. The brand messaging has been created to reflect Stott Hoare’s core values and positioning statements, to help align the strategic objectives of the business, as well as its employees by giving them an effective way to communicate with their clients and customers.
- The messaging framework allows us to be really clear on what we communicate with customers and how we want them to think and feel.
- It's about being intentional with the type of messaging we put out on the market, and having customers come looking for your product and service based on a story that you have created.
- To help them understand and respect the work, knowledge, and expertise behind Stott Hoare, but also the people and what you guys stand for. It's this understanding that turns strangers into buying customers and brand advocates.
UX Challenge
Establishing new modern concepts
One of the main UX challenges we encountered during the discovery workshops was that users were unfamiliar with Stott Hoare’s modern technology solutions, other than knowing them for being a hardware provider. There were three major factors I took into consideration:
- Users have trouble trusting the solution
- Users are unfamiliar with a modern technology concept
- Most users typically require sign off
Beyond this, we had to also consider how these factors were connected to the user's main goals and desires: what is the impact on their business and organisation? This became a leading factor and assisted in the creation of how users were able to identify what was right for them.
UX Solution
Marrying up the user’s journey with service delivery
What happens after a user converts? ‘The Process’, or how the service is delivered, is often regarded as the next stage in the sales journey. This typically takes place once the user has made contact with the business.
However, after taking into consideration that each user is already thinking about how it’s going to be delivered and what impact it will have on their organisation, I developed ‘The Process’ block.
Providing complete clarity on what users can expect next, The Process builds trust and credibility from the onset, perfectly marrying up the user’s journey and Stott Hoare’s service delivery to sum up what Stott Hoare does, how they do it, and the expected outcome.
- Allow users to easily navigate, consume and process a complex concept
- Establish brand awareness, trust, and credibility
- Service delivery and impact on the business
- Direct users to take the next logical step in their journey
Brand Character
