Norwegian bank drives up productivity by 80% with Sitecore

Sparebanken Vest is the third largest savings bank in Norway, and the country's second oldest bank, founded in 1823. It is headquartered in Bergen and has 37 branch offices delivering personal services to disparate communities around Norway. Complementing its brick-and-mortar presence, the bank is expanding digital services to improve the customer experience and increase self-service banking features to better engage with its customers.

Faced with growing competition and diminishing margins, Sparebanken Vest wanted to better serve existing customers, build loyalty, attract younger audiences, and improve revenue. Its existing website was complex and required a lot of technical skill to manage, while online customers were regularly calling the bank for additional customer support. To transform the customer experience, the bank aimed to balance digital services with a local, in-community presence.

As part of its digital strategy, Sparebanken Vest has begun implementing more cloud and SaaS applications, including migrating its digital experience platform (DXP) from Sitecore XP to Sitecore XM Cloud SaaS. Sitecore XM Cloud underpins the bank’s composable architecture and strategy for developing and delivering digital experiences and content across channels using best-of-breed, modular components.

Along with support from Sitecore, the migration was managed seamlessly, on time and on budget, by a dedicated team of six drawn from the bank’s 100-strong IT department. Sparebanken Vest often develops in-house digital banking applications and services to strengthen internal expertise and ownership, and using this modern, composable Sitecore XM Cloud solution, the bank is attracting and retaining the best talent.

Key to Sparebanken Vest’s digital strategy, Sitecore XM Cloud enables the bank to improve customer engagement, reduce system complexity, and increase productivity. By making website management easier, Sitecore has helped Sparebanken Vest improve efficiency and productivity by over 80%. The time required to develop and release new website front-end code has been cut by 88%, from 40 minutes to just 5 minutes. This reduces time to market for new products and services and enables increased revenue opportunities.

Reduced content and complexity and easier navigation has increased customer engagement with the bank and its website, which now loads much faster and has higher Google rankings. Regular surveys to gauge customer loyalty and satisfaction show higher scores since the bank migrated to Sitecore XM Cloud. With a goal to raise its Net Promoter Scores (NPS) to 70% of customers ranking it 5 or higher, XM Cloud has seen the bank reach a new milestone of 50%. Sitecore XM Cloud lifts the burden and cost of managing and supporting an on-premises application, while also helping the bank reduce its carbon footprint.