Why I rebranded Cherwell Service Management

Anyone who knows how to configure Cherwell will know that the interface is customisable.

The Cherwell Theme Editor allows global changes across much of it’s interface. It’s not perfect, but it’s a good place to start and the good news is (I expect) that it’s going to get better in forthcoming versions.  

So on the subject of theming, I’m going to focus on the why we should rebrand our Cherwell interface.  Rebranding is, as you’d expect, about corporate identity.  

What does rebranding entail?

When I refer to rebranding I mean changing the colour scheme, typeface and maybe the odd image here and there. It's easy to do, and it's a a quick win for employee and customer satisfaction.

From an external customer point of view the advantages of corporate identity is a well understood source of competitive advantage.  

But let’s talk about internal users, and in particular service management employees who work daily with the tool set. Studies have shown that the effect on corporate brand identity on employees increases employees’ commitment, which subsequently influences job satisfaction, and so performance, retention, and so on. Rather than a casual relationship, corporate brand identity creates an important bond between the employee and the organisation.  

So how do I rebrand Cherwell?

I don’t.

Well at least not at first. Instead I use a mock-up of Cherwell I have built using design software. This allows me to quickly change and fine tune colour schemes from corporate identity branding manuals. I can change a colour of a particular element or text, and it updates the entire object suite.

When satisfied, I head over to the Cherwell Theme Editor to make the changes.   

Why use a mock-up and not Cherwell itself? Well for one I already have the design assets for other purposes, so I may as well use them. But the main reason is that it is a country mile faster and more flexible than doing it directly within Cherwell (and that's pretty fast!).

Here are a couple of examples:

Additionally, the customer might want to fine-tune the elements for the best possible outcome. This is indeed possible, in fact it can be done interactively on the fly, where the customer can view live updates of design changes.

It is surprising how much colour can influence us. Don't just take my word for it, take Neil's as well:

"Color is 85% of the reason you purchased a specific product. The right combination can improve readership by 40%, comprehension by 73% and learning by 78%".
‍Neil Patel, Marketing Guru.

If you are interested to see how changing the colour scheme of your Cherwell interface could look with your organisations corporate colours an typefaces, just let me know I'd be happy to put it together even if just to showcase it on semeria.co.uk.

If you enjoyed this article even if it’s because it’s just a little bit different, please give me a mention and feel free to share it with your network.

Lookout for the next articles in this series: ‘Why and How I redesigned Cherwell’.

Thank you for reading.

p.s. and if anyone has spotted a design flaw in this article which is not possible to do in Cherwell, please shout :-)