Engineering excellence; online and on-site

Society of Operations Engineers (SOE)

The Society of Operations Engineers (SOE) supports around 16,000 members to champion excellence throughout the engineering sector. SOE represents a strong voice for safe and sustainable best practice in engineering and are actively working to enhance standards in this professional field.

The important work of SOE’s members impacts our daily lives in many aspects and we were delighted to provide them with a platform to reflect this level of excellence.

What SOE wanted

SOE sought to not just meet but exceed member expectations. A responsive website that could capitalise on real-time updates between their CRM and their CMS in addition to an enhanced design were the primary aims of our work. SOE’s new digital ecosystem was designed to increase ease of use for staff as well as members.

Going beyond this, they could see opportunities with automated marketing and content personalisation. The first touchpoints are often the most important and they were identified as key areas to be improved during the project.

We delivered

The newly launched SOE website consolidates multiple platforms into one. The needs of distinct special interest groups are being served whilst maintaining the overarching identity of SOE. Seamless integration of Preside CMS and Microsoft Dynamics allows for an enhanced user experience following an insight-led approach.

Member-centric digital decisions

The new SOE website needed to be scoped to best meet members' needs. We carried out five workshops to focus on key areas that would play into their overall digital experience.

Following Google’s HEART framework, Pixl8 developed clearer user-centric metrics to measure user experience on a large scale. Supplemented by user research techniques such as Hotjar Polls, an in-depth Google Analytics review, and 1-2-1 user interviews. Our results enabled mapping of members’ desires based on primary and secondary personas, which fed into the design process.

Efficient processes

With our new application processes in place, SOE are able to provide far clearer signposting; significantly increasing the number of correctly submitted applications. The time required to process applications has also decreased; down from 2-5 days to 24 hours at most.

The previously clunky application process featured onerous back and forth communication with applicants via email. We have replaced this with a streamlined digital solution capable of handling registration, detail collection, document uploads, and payments.

“The site has made processes easier for our teams to set up and maintain. For members the joining process is now seamless, which has made things simpler for them as well as vastly reducing the processing time for us. The new site also has a new online professional registration process. We have already benefitted from this with a large number of members applying for registration online."

Daniel Moir, Chief Operating Officer, Society of Operations Engineers

Microsoft Dynamics integration

The SOE website now runs on Preside CMS, seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Dynamics. This combination allows SOE to implement sophisticated personalisation on their website, pulling from audience segmentation set out in their CRM.

Real-time data flow between those two systems is key to maximising the impact of their digital ecosystem. It enables them to deliver an exceptional member experience.

Powerful, granular personalisation

SOE use Preside's Rules Engine to display content tailored to their members interests and preferences. Rules are currently used based on geographic location, sector, and magazine subscriptions.

This personalised content function is particularly useful for displaying events local to the user . SOE is split into multiple sub-organisations, and is currently using these separate target groups to deliver content tailored by geo-location, on one single website.

And then some

On top of a significant increase in online applications, SOE has improved internal efficiency with our thoughtful redesigns of key processes. Brand new functionality empowers members to self-service requirements that previously required communication with a member of staff; such as updating personal details, or downloading receipts.

This project has given SOE the digital wings they were looking for, facilitating immense digital transformation in an exceptionally short amount of time.

It only takes a glance at the old website to understand the true scale of change that has been achieved, in both look and feel, and usability. Developments of this magnitude require a great relationship and trust between organisation and chosen supplier.

In that sense, we are immensely proud of what we've achieved together, and look forward to future collaborative efforts between the Pixl8 and SOE teams.

The new website meant SOE saw an increase in online applications of 30% between May and November 2019, compared to the same period in 2018.

Oliver Teasell, MSOE MBES
Membership and Registration Manager, Society of Operations Engineers

“With these platforms working together, we can integrate the knowledge we hold about our members with insights we learn from their online preferences. This means we will be able to curate the content of our communications to make sure members see information and events relevant to them.”

Sarah Prest
IT Coordinator, SOE.

“We can now ask our members pick their topic preferences so that they get the news, events and technical articles they want to see. We are also beginning to use tailored email messaging and segmentation based on CRM/CMS status changes. This all helps us to provide our members with personalised information and benefits that they value.”

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Digital strategy & UX