The Bank Roll

At Webster, we have offered online banking since 1997. Over that time, we have learned a LOT about what makes the experience good — and what makes it frustrating. Coupled with your feedback, we have taken this knowledge and made some significant enhancements.

Basically, the challenges boiled down to two common themes:

1. Some stuff is hard to find.
2. Some of the content is difficult to understand.

Virtually all of the improvements were made with those two themes in mind. Here is a glimpse of some of the new features you will find when you sign in to www.websteronline.com:

Better Menus

Our old site required you to navigate a series of menus that were organized by many categories and even more sub-categories. If it was not obvious where to find something, you probably spent time hunting and pecking. Or, maybe you just gave up.

For example, one of the most common customer requests we received was for online check reordering – a service we have offered online for quite some time. Clearly, the “reorder checks” link was hard to find when it appeared under our “Online Banking” heading, then under a subhead called “Related Services”.

Here’s a snapshot of our old menu:

Our new menus are easier to scan, and allow you to quickly find what you are looking for. Here’s a snapshot of the new menu – see how much easier it is now to find “reorder checks”?

Use “Search for a Feature” to Find Things Fast

Even with better menus, it can occasionally be hard to find what you are looking for; so we added a new “Search for a feature” capability. This allows you to search throughout the site to find exactly what you need right away.

We have learned that our customers sometimes have trouble finding things on our website, because we are using different terms to describe the same type of transaction. For example, we use the term “Non-Webster Transfers” to describe a transaction that allows you to move money between your Webster Bank accounts and those at another financial institution.You might call that transaction an “ACH” or “inter-bank transfer.” To avoid confusion, we loaded our new search tool with many alternative names so you can quickly find what you are looking for based on the name YOU use for the feature. Just start typing the name of the feature and we will offer suggestions. Here’s a glimpse:

This enhancement is also a great way to give us feedback. If you are searching for something and do not see the result you expect, we would love to hear from you so we can continually improve our search. Simply select “Can’t find your feature? Request it.”

More Room for Your Account Information

We’ve redesigned the way your account information is presented to make it easier to view at a glance. Our new site has the same features and information as the old site, but we redesigned the layout to focus on the important information that you use most often. For example, our newly designed “Financial Summary” page is now twice the size, and easier to read with larger fonts. Here’s a peek:

A Tablet-Friendly Layout

Our new site looks great on a tablet. That’s because our design considers the device by making two very important considerations:

1. Our content responds to the size of your screen. On the new site, you will notice that the content on the right side of our pages moves down to the bottom of the screen when viewed on a tablet. This allows you to see your account information with no pinching or zooming required to read the page.
2. Links are spaced to accommodate fingers, not just a pointer. You might notice that the links in our menus have plenty of space separating them. Not only does that make the menu easier to read, but when you touch the screen, that extra space ensures you click on the link you intended.

Give it a Try and Send us Your Feedback!

We really hope that you find these improvements make your online banking experience a better one. Give the new site a try by logging in, and clicking on, “Switch to the new site now” which is located on the right of your Account Balances page. The new site will run in parallel with the old site for a few months to give you time to explore and provide feedback before the changes become permanent. If you choose to use the new site, all of your information will move over —  you don’t have to do anything. If, during the introductory period, you find that the new site does not work for you, you can always go back to our current site by selecting the “Switch to old site” option in our new navigation tool.

After you’ve taken the new site for a spin, we would love your feedback. Click here to take our short survey. Your feedback will help us make sure we are doing everything we can to provide you with the best online banking experience possible.

Greg Jacobi

Senior Vice President, Customer Experience