Business-Class Upgrade

SITUATION

In early 2009, Cox updated its residential consumer website with a new look and feel, but the business customer website remained an awkward add-on. It remained tightly coupled to the residential site and lacked the features business customers were looking for in this highly competitive segment.

Since Cox Business-Class service represented the company’s fastest growing market, and one that is highly profitable, the business team wanted to know what kind of differentiation the business class site should offer. Should it continue to leverage the residential look and feel? Did it provide the functionality that would benefit the end user?

In order to answer these questions and others, Cox executives decided that it would be valuable to acquire some independent third-party suggestions, so the company hired Digital Foundry to perform an evaluation of their current website, benchmark site capabilities against those of competitors and peers, and provide detailed strategic recommendations.

SOLUTION

Digital Foundry began the assessment by conducting market research to help accurately catalogue the services offered by Cox peers and competitors. In addition to performing thorough market research, we conducted in-depth interviews with key personnel in seven of the company’s markets, and we also met with a group of high-value customers to assess their needs.

After the interviews, we evaluated the input and presented our findings. Our recommendations were divided into six categories, including business process, company identity, customer service, sales, key metrics, and technology.

Our business strategy report gave Cox stakeholders several ways to address challenges in each category. This report included both short- and long-term recommendations, with enough detail that third-party vendors could bid on specific assignments or their own internal IT group could move immediately to implement the enhancements.

RESULTS

By working closely with our client to select key stakeholders and customers who could provide valuable input, we helped Cox Communications:

• Identify key recommendations applicable to six important areas of the company’s business and technological infrastructure.
• Understand how the business site should differ from the residential site and validate the web strategy team’s view of how these two sites needed to be positioned.
• Create an actionable list of website improvement projects in order of priority that empowers business owners to engage internal resources or trusted partners for execution.