Back to UX Director
Customer Portal: Strengthening Partnership Through Experience
skills
UX Design, Design System, Brand Identity
Roles
Director of UX, Creative Director
Date
2021
The Business Challenge
Fletcher Insulation is one of Australia’s leading manufacturers and distributors of residential and commercial building insulation, providing thermal, acoustic, and fire-rated solutions across the construction industry.
The business faced a challenging market environment shaped by rising input costs, energy price volatility, labor shortages, and softening demand. In this climate, protecting existing customer relationships became critical.
The opportunity was not simply to improve a customer portal. It was to help Fletcher’s partners operate more efficiently, make better decisions, and continue choosing Fletcher in a more competitive market.
“The market is not making it easy to keep partners happy. We need to look for new ways to cultivate loyalty.”
The Customer Reality
Fletcher’s customers—including tradespeople, architects, builders, and commercial project managers—were navigating increasing complexity across their own businesses.
They needed to manage material availability, pricing volatility, delivery timelines, credit, quotes, payments, compliance requirements, training, and marketing support. What they wanted was greater visibility and control.
Instead of relying on disconnected touchpoints, they needed a single place to manage the entire relationship with Fletcher Insulation in real time. The portal needed to become more than a transaction tool. It needed to become an operating tool.
“Honestly I don’t have time to track down all this stuff. Just put it all in one place – make it easy.”
The Strategic Opportunity
Fletcher Insulation already held a strong leadership position in the Australian glasswool insulation market.
The opportunity was to strengthen that position by improving the partner experience.
By creating a more complete, transparent, and efficient customer portal, Fletcher could help customers save time, reduce uncertainty, and manage their businesses with greater confidence.
The strategy was to shift the portal from a narrow account-management tool into a holistic partner platform supporting the full customer journey:
Estimates
Quotes
Product research
Purchasing
Delivery tracking
Payment history
Team management
Credit availability
Training
Marketing support
The more useful Fletcher became to its partners, the more valuable the relationship became.
The Transformation
The new customer portal brought the partner relationship into one connected experience. Customers could manage their accounts faster, access real-time information, and make better decisions without relying on multiple systems or manual communication. A complete eCommerce experience allowed partners to research and purchase products directly within the portal, reducing friction and improving throughput.
The addition of the Why FI section expanded the portal beyond transactions, giving customers easy access to training, marketing materials, and resources that helped them sell, specify, and install Fletcher products more effectively.
The result was a portal that did more than support customers. It helped strengthen their businesses.
Leadership Insight
Market downturns reveal what companies truly value. Some organizations pull back. Fletcher Insulation chose to invest in its partners. This project reinforced an important principle:
The strongest B2B brands are built through usefulness.
When a company helps its customers become more efficient, more informed, and more successful, the brand becomes more than a supplier relationship. It becomes a business advantage.
