Case Study

Delivering a self-service experience to telecom business customers

Altice USA

A woman with coffee sits in a chair working on her laptop and mobile phone
  • Optimum Business Website
  • Fourth-largest cable operator in the United States
  • Provides service to customer in 21 states
  • 4.6 million cable subscribers
  • $30B market cap

Altice USA (Altice) operates under the brands Optimum and Suddenlink. It is currently the fourth-largest cable operator in the United States, providing high-speed internet, phone, television and managed services in 21 states from New York to California. Spry Digital has been a digital partner to Altice USA since 2014, supporting both B2C and B2B ecommerce channels.

Services Involved
  • UX Research + Design
  • JavaScript (Node/Angular) Development
  • DevOps
  • Product Lifecycle Support

Providing a unified ecommerce solution across multiple brand and service areas.

While the Optimum brand has provided small businesses an ecommerce solution in the East territory for some time, the Suddenlink brand in the West had found itself without a self-service option for more than a year due to a change in the business. The Optimum buyflow that did exist, the first for Optimum business customers, had an experience design based on the highly successful, higher-volume B2C (i.e., residential) buyflow. Priority on speed-to-market had been the name of the game with the implementation of the first business buyflow.

Another challenge that Altice Business faced was processing delays in publishing timely offers to customers based on their address and serviceability, due to a cumbersome process of updating the enterprise product catalog (EPC) – a legacy system used across the business. Lastly, Altice USA Business had undergone a brand overhaul, which meant that any existing solution’s interface was out of step with the new brand.

The redesign of the buyflow was an opportunity to address brand, experience and operational deficiencies.

Screens demonstrating Spry's process and synthesis of user testing

Taking a holistic approach to the redesign of the buyflow experience

To understand the needs of a small business customer and pivot the business buyflow experience from the existing B2C-based experience, Spry began by undertaking a user research phase. The research included conducting interviews with small business owners in the New York tri-state area – ranging from a dentist office to a hair salon – and observing their experience completing tasks with the existing solution. Two common themes were identified that could prove to be hurdles to successful conversion: overly branded terminology in the interface microcopy and a lack of clear pricing (as in how services and pricing are displayed). Spry saw these as opportunities to address with the redesign. It also became clear that business customers generally opted for a build-your-own bundle experience versus preset bundles, the leading experience at the time.

Synthesizing user research and prioritizing the low-hanging fruit

During a synthesis/design-planning phase Spry prioritized tactical items based on a level of effort versus business impact. Any low-hanging fruit was prioritized in the redesign, while heavier-lift items would be added to the product roadmap, to be planned and developed for later releases

Optimizing the experience and funnel

The Spry Digital team developed wireframes that moved the experience from a bundle-first approach to a build-your-own bundle experience, allowing the customer to configure their services and compare pricing more effectively – all things that would lend to feeling more in control of their evaluation and purchase journey. Branded terminology in microcopy was kept in check in favor of common nomenclature, and multimedia callouts were incorporated to boost product education, especially for more technical products.

A new interface design reflecting the new brand identity was created to align with the already rebranded marketing website. Logic to serve Optimum and Suddenlink unique product offerings from the same buyflow was put into place, so for the first time, the business had a consistently branded experience across Optimum and Suddenlink footprints.

Technical architecture that improves performance and reduces delivery time

To solve the issue of not being able to push timely offers in response to the market, Spry Digital created a new subsystem for managing catalog data that allowed rapid translation of business rules directly into the buyflow code. This new system dramatically improved application performance and reduced the implementation time for product offering changes by six weeks. Matched with a quick-to-load front-end interface, built with AngularJS/Node.js JavaScript frameworks, the buyflow was no longer hindered by legacy systems.

Accessibility improvements

Any opportunity to develop a new interface means giving more love to accessibility, so Spry developers spent more time and effort on accessibility features, improving usability for even more customers.

Implementing the newer, faster buyflow in the East under the Optimum brand and rolling out the buyflow in western markets under the Suddenlink brand transformed the business overnight, translating to record sales for Altice Business.

Examples of Suddenlink's buyflow interface on a laptop, tablet and phone

An expanded self-service footprint combined with an improved customer experience

Implementing the newer, faster buyflow in the East under the Optimum brand and rolling out the buyflow in western markets under the Suddenlink brand transformed the business overnight, translating to record sales for Altice Business.

43%

Year-over-year growth in West region (+23% overall)

6

Week decrease in delivery time of new offers

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