ntl:Telewest Business case study
Immediacy Opens Lines of Communication for ntl:Telewest
Business
ntl:Telewest Business has over 15 years’ experience in
delivering communications solutions for government, public sector
and commercial organisations. It was formed through the
merger of the business divisions of ntl Incorporated and Telewest
Global Inc. The merger, one of the largest in UK telecoms' history,
means the combined company is now part of the second largest fixed
line telecommunications company in the UK, specifically, the B2B
division of the Virgin Media Group.
Services include business broadband,
managed internet/security services, IP VPN and LAN/WAN
solutions. These are supported and managed from over 40
locations throughout the UK.
Challenge
As part of its overall strategy for exemplary
customer service, ntl:Telewest Business wanted to find a way in
which it could become closer to the customer by providing an
individual and personalised feel to its web presence. In turn this
would give them the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding
of customer issues and offer help from specialised teams.
By segmenting the market and tailoring its
website to specific parties, it would be able to remove unnecessary
content, making it easier to find relevant information and respond
to queries quickly.
To achieve this goal, three key challenges had
to be overcome. Firstly, ntl:Telewest Business had a lot of
information that it wanted to provide, with a relatively small
space to present it in. Secondly, user attention spans online
are short, resulting in users giving up easily if information is
not located quickly. And lastly, ntl:Telewest Business had to
make allowance for up to eight very different audiences from their
key markets to speak to, from small single location businesses to
emergency services organisations or the largest local authorities
in the UK, each with their own particular needs and trigger
points.
In short, personalised web content had to be
easy to manage by a small team on a limited budget.
Having considered a number of options,
ntl:Telewest Business turned to the Immediacy Content Management
System (CMS).
Solution
Personalisation of the website was achieved by
early identification of the audience. By asking which market
segment a web visitor came from, all content subsequently served up
to that visitor would be relevant to their business. This
content included details such as case studies, customer quotes,
press releases, white papers, accreditations and targeted
advertisements.
Using the Immediacy Editor, all content could
be updated and managed through a single, intuitive and easy to use
WYSIWYG interface.
The Immediacy CMS was developed to help
non-technical users to produce, maintain and control a complex
website in a simple manner and has been widely acknowledged for
outstanding ease-of-use and the resulting high levels of user
adoption.
In addition to simple content acquisition and
editing, the Immediacy CMS features strict versioning control
functions such as archiving and roll back, reporting functions such
as audit trails and detailed web analytic reports, and
up-to-the-minute, in-built accessibility checking.
Result
Following implementation, ntl:Telewest
Business witnessed a number of benefits straight away.
From the word go and supported by research
with focus groups, the web team has received anecdotal feedback
from prospects and other site users who have been pleasantly
surprised when visiting the website with just how user friendly it
is. By receiving tailored, consistent and up-to-date
information, customers felt more valued, driving brand loyalty and
helping to maintain recurring revenues.
Internally, the team involved in editing and
managing the website found it was much easier and five times faster
to keep content up to date, making them feel more inclined to
participate on a regular basis.
On a resource level, because time was not
being wasted on lengthy content management, the team was able to
spend time developing more advanced website features and
advertising campaigns. With a focus on creating easy to digest
useful content and driving traffic to the site, the website team is
now responsible for generating sizable leads, via email forms or
web specific sales lines, from large organisations as well as small
and medium sized businesses. Only half way through the year the
online revenue had outstripped that of the year prior.
ntl:Telewest Business are so pleased with the
efficiency and information management gains of the CMS they have
also bought the Immediacy Document Management System which makes
content even easier to manage offering version control and history
log of changes. Lists of the most current PDFs are easy to import
into relevant web pages now.
Marta Eleniak, Web Strategy & Development Manager at
ntl:Telewest Business, commented, “We chose Immediacy because their
system stood out amongst other CMS vendors as being the most easy
to use whilst demonstrating good value for money. Many
features of the system are easily configurable by a website manager
who doesn’t have to be a developer or have a development skill
set. One of our key goals was to bring new online
functionality to the site rather than getting unduly delayed by a
constant barrage of minor changes. These created a bottleneck
in the process but because our old system was too unwieldy and
unintuitive, only a handful of people could confidently use it or
were willing to use it. By allowing a larger pool of staff to
quickly and easily edit and upload content, we’re able to free up a
great deal of time to spend on other things, such as testing
content with users and refining it to ensure we maximise our online
presence. Another major bonus that results from an overall
increase in team efficiency, is that we’re able to react to market
forces quickly and competitively. We love the difference Immediacy
has made to our every day working and we’re going to migrate our
intranet to Immediacy next.”
Web reference:
http://www.ntltelewestbusiness.co.uk/