Lockheed Federal Credit Union is a not-for-profit financial cooperative with over $1 Billion in assets. Their site was not meeting the needs of owners or members. It had three basic problems: functionality, flexibility and aesthetics.

With tight schedules, a finite budget and a legion of different goals and functions for the site, they called us in. Bravo Zulu team members flew to their corporate headquarters in Burbank, California to review the project and give an initial diagnosis.

One of the most notable changes is the treatment of LFCU’s brand. We had to balance elements of the Lockheed Martin heritage and brand with that of the credit union. Since the site is about helping families manage their finances for better living, we didn’t want to present an image that was too militaristic. But Lockheed has a very prestigious brand, and the credit union wanted to leverage it.

Our solution was to use lifestyle photography to carry the theme of flight in a number of interesting and subtle ways. Those subtleties made all the difference; the focus on people with a patina of aerospace heritage.

But most of our work was subtler still, below the surface. We helped Lockheed reorganize their site with a user-centered approach to organization, navigation and labeling. We even helped with the architecture of some of their member forms, converting terribly long pages into smarter, bite-sized chucks that are easy to navigate and quicker to fill out.

Results? LFCU members have an easier time finding the information they need. The owners have a stronger relationship with their customers, not to mention a site they can be proud of. In the months following the new site's launch:

 •   Home page visits grew 38 percent
 •   Rate and calculator page visits nearly doubled
 •   Membership application page hits increased over 20 percen

Update: Although Lockheed wasn't looking for a Web content management system when we intially consulted with them, they called us back this year to install SAM. Since we had originally built the site in SAM anyways, and delivered the pure HTML that the tool publishes, we were able to have them up and running within a matter of days. Now the LFCU web team is experiencing the joys of full-on Web content management.

Need help getting your website to take flight? Call us.