Jeanine Cohoon photo

Jeanine Cohoon

Designer, marketing pro and digital customer experience enthusiast.

Welcome! Here’s a little about me

I’m passionate about improving the customer’s experience. Whether in-person, online, on paper or in-app, I’m not satisfied until the customer’s encounter “just works.”

This passion has led me to maximize my human-centered design and people management skills.

I’ve spent my work-life gathering the experience and skills to successfully advocate for the customer. I’m not looking to stop now.

I’m highly effective at developing and deploying effective strategies. There are three reasons why:

  1. I am empathetic, particularly to the needs of customers and peers.
  2. I am solutions-oriented with the ability to multi-task and adapt quickly to changing requirements and conditions.
  3. I am skilled at successfully partnering across related disciplines including usability research, content strategy, accessibility, and web development to meet the established business objectives of an engagement.

Strategy development and deployment success stories

CASE ONE:

Identifying a company risk of having no online account opening accessibility, I developed one of the first online account opening applications for a North Carolina community bank, including customer application and administrative interface.

CASE TWO:

Helping remediate the risk of supporting siloed legacy systems, I serve as the customer experience Subject Matter Expert (SME) liaison to digital banking operations, working to address deficiencies with third-party apps provided to customers.

CASE THREE:

Reduced compliance risk and enhanced the availability of company products and services by bringing a 120-page website up to WCAG 2.1 standards for Americans with Disabilities (ADA) accessibility.

CASE FOUR:

Significantly improved product availability to key customers and distributors by leading the team which developed a part number crossover web app for a global manufacturer designed for desktop and mobile use with or without an internet connection.

CASE FIVE:

Improved in-house efficiency and customer satisfaction by leading the team that developed an email management system to standardize and synchronize customer email addresses between internal systems and connected via Application Programming Interface (API) to an external email marketing provider.

CASE SIX:

Built a new cross-functional team, resulting in successful product launches and enhancements.

Past Work

The most satisfying projects I’ve done improve the customer experience.

They arise from some combination of data, either what we know or what we knew we didn’t know — we’re talking exploring customer surveys, feedback from the call center or the AE’s desk. It may include recent stuff from the reading pile: Nielsen Report, The New York Times, the American Banker, etc.

Sometimes it comes from my own frustration with a nineties-style web interface. But, the best data comes from conversations with users telling you about their pain points and how they make life insufferable.

2019: Community Bank Website

The bank’s website was originally provided by an outside vendor. It proved insecure. My assignment was to re-invent the process. We hired another agency to develop the website utilizing the Kentico Content Management System. My job was to:

  • work across department lines, create and manage content selection, working closely with the compliance department
  • create a UI kit and style guide for the developer including page and form templates and work flows
  • develop a system to accommodate a multi-user editing system including training manuals
  • work with the developer to ensure the final site conformed to spec

The result?  A smooth running site with 99.98% uptime that is a breeze to maintain and update content.  (When Covid scrambled all 18 of our office operating schedules, the ease of editing was a major big time bonus.) Click here to visit the site.

2012: Community Bank intranet

Preview of Peoples Bank intranet site home page

It didn’t take a brain surgeon to realize the institution’s internal communications was inefficient, and sometimes downright ineffective.  I proposed, and was given permission to create and deploy an easy-to-use intranet.  My responsibilities were to (1) reach out across department lines and develop a scope of the communication imperatives, (2) seek a compatible application, in this case WordPress, for obvious reasons, (3) design content and “formatted containers” that could be used as templates by less-than-technical employees, and (4) serve as a tech support resource when things didn’t go as planned.  Along the way I altered the site mechanics to suit unforeseen requirements.  Notably the intranet switched from old-style text sub-head links to icons, which were a new concept at the time.  Regrettably, a new IT director came on board who didn’t understand our concept, plus it wasn’t his idea. So, poof, a new (and very boring, non-icon version) replaced my baby. 

Poo!

2008 Web App: Online Account Opening System for a Community Bank

Screenshot with title Apply For a New Deposit Account

It seems almost laughable now, but in 2008, the idea of opening a new checking account on the Internet was deemed too off-the-wall. I know how it was. I remember how hard it was to convince the client to go forward. I worked on the team that developed and implemented the system (the first for a community bank in North Carolina). But build it we did. It has been updated over the years, but it keeps on ticking with a 99%+ uptime rate. It’s still running, click here to visit the site.

2014: Community Bank Website

Preview of Entegra Bank website home page

Back in the day, lots of financial institutions had their website designed and maintained by their core provider. It was an easy decision to make, but it was not so easy to live with. Most of the core providers thought that 14 day turn on support was just fine–unless, of course, a substantial up-charge for “rush service” was in the picture.

So, that’s what we were faced with: replacing a core provider website. It was clunky. Slow. Tedious. The bank was doubling in size every 18 months, so it was time to get the site into the 21st century.

We had the option of using WordPress to leverage its CMS and beefing up the security with some proprietary tools, but really the bank was way too big, and growing too fast for WordPress to be  consideration.

So working with my developer we chose to code a Bootstrap site with PHP, slathering the site with multiple layers of protective code and access procedures. The resulting site was completely hardened yet fast enough to keep up with the bank’s growth. Site uptime was 99%. Later we added an Intranet that employees could manage on their own, including graphics, photos and content.

The website and intranet live in memory as the bank was sold in 2019.

 

2021: Retailer Inventory-Driven Website

Parker part number crossover app

This project began with the need to make the process of communicating critical information to customers and key distributors.  In other words, connecting client data to customers.  In this case, we were connecting a Quick Books data file with a WordPress site—with a double dose of ad-hoc security code. Customers, particularly the professional interior designers who make up more than two-thirds of company sales, loved it. Now they could shop whenever—even on the train ride home. The site has been running at 90% uptime since 2012 and is, at this very moment, being upgraded to a Drupal 8 website. This upgrade includes a better database and a shopping cart.

2015 Microsite and Web App: Connect Company Data 24/7 with Customers and Distributors

Parker part number crossover app

This site was developed and installed in 2015. Previously, the client was advising customers and distributors of content changes with US Mail, sending a CD (yeah, that’s right, a CD) with encrypted data base no one in the company could modify. We hacked the database (not saying how we did that) and converted the data to a SQL database connected to a web app. Customers and distributors could look up data 24/7. (They could also view an up-to-date catalog page with full descriptions—and email the data using their own email client.) The company managers could update the data as soon as it was available, 24/7. Forget the telephone, the US mail and the fax machine.

See, that’s what makes me happy: giving the user what they want, when they want it. Click here to view the web app.

Skills

  • Digital Strategy Development
     
  • Website Design, Development and Management
     
  • User Experience Research,  Development and Implementation
     
  • Web and Mobile App Design and Development

Business Software Expertise

  • Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Adobe XD, Acrobat)
     
  • Web authoring (HTML, CSS, Basic Javascript)
     
  • Microsoft Office/Office 365 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook)
     
  • Camtasia video editing and production
     
  • MailChimp email marketing
     
  • Hootsuite social media content publishing
     
  • WordPress and Kentico website content management systems
     
  • Google Analytics
     
  • ADA (Americans with Disabilities) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG) standards

Experience

VP – Marketing Channel Analyst

Peoples Bank – Newton, North Carolina
2017 – Present

 

  • Responsible for digital marketing channels to support the company’s sales efforts and customer communications
  • Maintain and manage corporate website content and functionality
  • Digital liaison to all departments including Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Digital Banking Services, Core System Managers, Customer Service Center, Sales Teams and Management to evaluate and implement third-party applications
  • Coordinator between online account opening system and outside technology developers

EVP – Director of Client Services

AM-Solutions – Asheville, North Carolina
2015 – 2017

Managed client relationships and led projects for branding campaigns, website design, development and management, digital and traditional marketing and advertising campaigns, and software development.

VP – Creative Director/Digital Services Director

AM-Solutions – Asheville, North Carolina
2011 – 2015

Supervision of all digital services with client marketing programs; supervision of agency’s middleware products.

VP – Director of Creative and Web Services

AM-Solutions – Asheville, North Carolina
2007 – 2011

Responsible to integrate web services into agency’s creative marketing strategies.

Creative Director

AM-Solutions – Asheville, North Carolina
2005 – 2007

Responsible for development of creative, strategic solutions to client marketing challenges.

Art Director

AM-Solutions – Asheville, North Carolina
1999 – 2005

Creative graphic design and production for client advertising and marketing needs for print, video and web.

Think I’d be a good fit?

Let’s talk it over. Drop me an email.