A new dawn for Sky TV's website

SITUATION

The Sky website developed organically over the years and had lost its purpose for customers, explains Philippa Morris, Sky’s Head of Digital Marketing and Customer Communication. “It didn’t know if you’re a current customer or if you were there to sign up for Sky, therefore making it difficult for customers to do what they wanted, and it didn’t clearly articulate our product proposition. This was apparent as our customers were preferring to deal with us through the call centre, rather than through online self-service,” Morris explains.

“If they prefer coming in through the contact centre, that’s no problem. But if they prefer using the website, that’s also great. We wanted to make it easy as possible for anyone to interact with us, using the channel which best suits them.”

Morris also says the previous site was focused on acquisitions, which often made current customers feel undervalued when they were on the website. “Even navigation for potential new customers was a bit confusing, given the range of Sky packages available, which made it hard for customers to understand what they were purchasing. And we needed to add features for existing customers to pay bills or find out about new content, without constantly bombarding them with offers.”

SOLUTION

Sky had engaged Assurity through an RFP on another project closely aligned with the website experience. With an iterative approach to user experience design, Assurity doesn’t just say they put customers at the centre, they actually do so, involving real customers by reaching out, gathering information and testing developments.

“It may seem odd, but on projects like this it can be easy to forget about the customer. Everyone within the business has a view of what they believe the customer may want, until you actually go and ask. Sometimes, the answers can be illuminating and the bottom line is the customer voice is absolutely important. It removes any space for interpretation, assumption or inference.”

With a large database, Morris notes that getting customer participation is a matter of contacting people and asking for their input. “Most are very willing to share their ideas and be involved in the project. We worked regularly with customers in short two-to-four-week sprints and also engaged potential customers to cover all possible customer interactions.”

Sometimes the same customers were polled to get views on iterative developments, sometimes new ones were asked to provide their experience of the engagement. “We’d canvass a wide spread of inputs and reactions to any development.”

RESULTS

Assurity focused on the CX and UX of the site and worked with Sky’s in-house development team for the build – with an iterative process to ensure what we were designing could be built within the constraints of our tech stack.

The measures of success for Assurity’s work, continues Philippa, include lifting conversion rates for sales and turning more customer interactions to digital, along with standardised measures of increased website traffic.

Having COVID-19 hit during this piece of work meant rapid adaptation was necessary. “We had to change quickly and Assurity has adapted and worked with us as needs have evolved; at every stage, exceptional work has accelerated our journey to being more customer centric,” she comments.

Assurity, adds Morris, is a partner rather than a vendor or supplier. "They were agile and adaptive at all times, responding to how our business works and its needs, including the stop-start nature of the project. And then when lockdown hit, we were impressed with how rapidly Assurity moved to keep the project going, keep hitting the deliverable dates and finding new ways of operating by going above and beyond any expectations.” Working with Assurity, Morris says, is like having an extension of the Sky team who share our passion.

It’s great to engage with people who love customer experience so much. Our knowledge and skills have grown in this space through the engagement, and it’s put the business on the start of a journey defined by and for the customer"

Philippa Morris, Head of Digital Marketing and Customer Communication, Sky TV