Digital engagement with veterans recognised

Winner of Category 1 “Provision of a Service to Defence less than $15 million” at the 2019 Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry and Employer Support, Silverstripe dug deep for Veterans Affairs.

A New Zealand-based company specialising in designing and developing customer-focused IT services, Silverstripe partnered with Veterans’ Affairs to re-design and modernise the NZDF’s engagement with the Veterans’ community . The result: a new userfriendly website featuring an eligibility tool that has achieved a 94 percent satisfaction rating from users.

“We’re proud to announce that Silverstripe has been awarded an Award of Excellence to Industry for the provision of a service to Defence through our work on the Veterans’ Affairs website!” shouted the Silverstripe LinkedIn account immediately after the win.

Silverstripe at the awards.

Image: Silverstripe/LinkedIn

“The project was the cornerstone of our new approach to communicating with the veteran community, said Matthew Dyson of Veterans’ Affairs New Zealand. “We wanted a single place that we could direct people to, where they could find out if they’re eligible, and if so how we can help.”

According to Pete Lister, Head of Client Strategy & Delivery at Silverstripe, the project was more than just about building a website. “It was actually [about helping Veterans’ Affairs] understand the users, so that it was something that was going to be valuable for people when they actually use it.”

“Veterans gave us some requirements up front for the project, and when we looked at their requirements we decided that we should actually dig a bit deeper into that to try and understand what they wanted to achieve and why they wanted to achieve it,” he said.

“The last thing we wanted to do was to build a website that doesn’t work for Veterans’ Affairs or for the users or for the veterans around the country, so it was really important for us to make sure we understood that and to challenge Veterans Affairs on that as part of the process.”

“We liked Silverstripe’s approach,” said Mr Dyson. “It was honest, and they genuinely wanted to understand what we were trying to achieve as opposed to just selling us a product. The fact that they could come back to us and say actually you need to better understand what your users want and what the best way to meet their need is. That’s what won us over with Silverstripe.

“Our website is now the ore place that we direct people to; it’s our main communication channel to interact with all veterans, check your eligibility in particular. So it’s an interactive tool; it only takes a couple of minutes, and it helps veterans understand if they can get support from us and if so what sort of support.

According to Mr Dyson, Veterans’ Affairs has recorded a 270 percent increase in people using the website’s ‘Check Your Eligibility’ tool. “It’s exactly what we’ve been after.”