Founded in 1926, HomeTrust Bank provides valuable banking services to customers in 30+ locations across five Southeastern states. With a focus on building strong client relationships, the North Carolina state-chartered bank offers personal, business, commercial, mortgage, and wealth management banking services.
HomeTrust Bank has a stellar reputation, receiving various accolades for its services including ”Best Small Bank in North Carolina” by Newsweek in 2023, and “Great Employers to Work for in North Carolina” by Best Companies Group in 2023. To ensure continued levels of excellence, and in line with a mission to provide value-added relationship banking, HomeTrust reviewed its current board portal software with another provider and identified some efficiency deficits.
Upon an audit with the HomeTrust board of directors, the service of the previous board portal provider was found to be less than satisfactory. Issues such as time-consuming processes when creating board books, the inability to save document annotations, and directors being kicked out of the portal when looking at documents were creating inefficiencies that needed to be resolved.
After analyzing multiple new solutions, HomeTrust Bank selected the Computershare BoardWorks™ portal to empower its board to excel.
Given that HomeTrust Bank was switching from one board portal to another, the new software needed to be easy for members to adjust to. After comparing different board management solutions, the BoardWorks portal passed the vetting stage “with flying colors,” and came out as the clear winner since it was easier to use than the other solutions, in particular thanks to its user-friendly interface.
HomeTrust Bank’s established relationship with Computershare was another important factor. As a valued client of our transfer agent services, HomeTrust was familiar with and felt more comfortable with the overall security Computershare provides.
Security is of the utmost importance for boards across the globe, and the BoardWorks portal offers heightened transparency regarding how it protects and manages client data. Computershare invests millions of dollars per year into security, and its well-known position as a publicly traded company allows clients to trust solutions like the BoardWorks portal rather than an offering from a private company. From multi-factor authentication to biometric passwords, board members can implement several BoardWorks features to protect sensitive information.
Learning how to use a different system, and collaborating with a new provider often deters boards from moving on to better solutions. However, HomeTrust was complimentary of the Computershare team’s efforts from the get-go, in particular singling out their responsiveness and availability when first making queries about the product.
This hands-on customer support has only been amplified since HomeTrust became a BoardWorks portal client. The HomeTrust Bank board members have busy schedules, and the Computershare training team worked around this, offering flexible training options and support with queries.
"Our trainer has been wonderful and very responsive when there have been questions. He worked with us over the course of two weeks, provided five or six different options for training times, and was very thorough."
- A HomeTrust representative.
Pricing was another decisive component. While a competitor continually dropped its price until it was a third of the original amount offered, leading to understandable doubts, Computershare’s continuous clarity surrounding pricing and contracts ultimately sealed the deal.
Price transparency led HomeTrust to feel more comfortable with using the BoardWorks portal as HomeTrust’s representative states, “What we were told contract-wise gave us better clarity than the others we were considering.” Pricing for the BoardWorks portal is always fair and clearly communicated to clients, with no hidden fees for extra committees, training, or implementation.
After a successful onboarding experience, the board of directors has shared overwhelmingly positive feedback for the BoardWorks portal and Computershare’s support team.
"There were a few questions, but not many, and for the most part, everyone seems to really like using the app and it’s working very well. The board of directors has enjoyed their experience so far using the new BoardWorks portal."
- A HomeTrust representative.
HomeTrust’s board members have also noticed improvements regarding notetaking and annotation opportunities, thanks to the portal’s Document Annotation tool.
"Our Board members appreciate the ability to annotate because we did not have that option available before. Just being able to save those annotations and not having to start over is huge."
- A HomeTrust representative.
Not only can BoardWorks portal users save document annotations, but they can also share these with others, facilitating better communication between board members.
The HomeTrust board portal administrator has also experienced the time-saving benefits of the portal’s Agenda Builder. For a recent board of directors meeting, HomeTrust had to make multiple changes to a board meeting agenda over a few days, but the BoardWorks portal helped streamline processes so that it took little time when reordering the agenda. With the time saved, members in the organization can now spend less time on minor details and focus more on other important tasks.
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