Bringing a human touch to insolvency

Parker Andrews is a specialist firm of licensed insolvency practitioners with offices in London, Cambridge, Ipswich, Norwich and Portsmouth.

Focus area

Brand Identity
Digital Transformation
UX/UI Design
Website Development

Industry

Business Recovery

Overview & Strategy

Founded in 2010, the award-winning firm has supported businesses in financial difficulty up and down the country for over a decade, offering proactive solutions to companies large and small.

Specialising in insolvency, business recovery and turnaround, Parker Andrews offers leading expertise within the sector and has developed solutions for even the most complex of cases – their approach being: “If you feel there is no other option, we’re confident we can explore something new.”

Having been a client of StrategiQ’s for many years, Parker Andrews came to us with a new opportunity following a noticeable shift in the market.

After witnessing a major increase in insolvencies in the wake of the pandemic – with some of the worst-hit sectors being hospitality, retail and recreational services – Parker Andrews wanted to find a way to maximise on the increase in demand and necessity for the services they offer. That’s where we came in.

Interestingly, when we looked at what competitors were doing, we noticed a direct relationship between the tone of voice in the market and the complexity of the case. For example, bigger businesses (and ultimately, bigger deals) would be targeted with more support-focused language, with offers from insolvency experts to help them with their ‘burden’ and ‘make things easier’ in ‘challenging times’. When it came to smaller businesses, however, they were simply being funnelled into insolvency directly, with the approach being to close their companies as quickly and as cheaply as possible.

The most glaring issue is that those smaller enterprises are often family businesses, or businesses that people have invested their entire lives into. It’s therefore devastating for those involved to have to file for insolvency and to see their work disappear. We felt there was an opportunity to own this space – offering the support and warmth needed for those smaller businesses while still simplifying the process for them and avoiding a disconnected, transactional experience.

Our overarching goal was therefore to offer these simple solutions at affordable costs, stripping away the complexity of the insolvency process and communicating with these clients in a warm and empathetic way, while still maintaining a voice of expertise and professionalism.

The outcome

An entirely new website which would go on to form part of a series of sub-brands in the future; each brand will begin with ‘PA’ to establish that they’re operating under the Parker Andrews mothership, for example ‘PA Insolvency’ and ‘PA Debt Advisory’, and each brand will stand as its own unique business offering different financial services.

A new family of similar logos, with a different colour palette for each sub-brand. We opted to use lowercase for the new ‘pa-insolvency’ name and incorporated rounded edges and curves within the graphics; lending itself to a softer feel and steering away from the corporate style of the websites geared towards larger businesses.

A new colour scheme which was warm and welcoming but professional, and created a homepage animation to drive home the theme for the entire project: ‘Insolvency made simple’.

A new tone of voice with simple, direct language that informs without being overwhelming or intimidating, while also establishing the expertise and credibility behind the Parker Andrews brand.

From the homepage, users are led to a four-step insolvency test which walks through a series of straightforward questions, with easily navigable buttons and boxes to supply basic information about a business’ current financial status in order for the Parker Andrews team to advise on the steps they need to take.

The ultimate objective was to lead people to the answers they needed in the simplest way possible, while remaining sensitive to the challenges of filing for insolvency and avoiding an excessively transactional or complicated experience.

The new website now takes users on a simple journey where they’re welcomed by the style and phrasing, and met with a supportive approach from professionals they know they can trust. Nobody ever wants to have to file for insolvency, but, in the words of a Parker Andrews client, they make the process as “painless” as possible, and building a brand around this concept has given those businesses a safe place to go when they need it most.

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