CASE STUDY: O2

O2 head of online Lance Haswell met Good Growth for an exploratory conversation in the early months following Good Growth’s formation. Lance revealed there was something compelling in the approach.

“Good Growth came in with a clear but very challenging proposal. Their thinking was original and fresh and they offered the possibility of a large profit impact in the space of six months, which from a commercial perspective was obviously very attractive”.

“Their focus was very much on how to create value and profit and there was a fearlessness to look at the big opportunities and then to really go for it, which was infectious”.

Good Growth’s initial interaction involved implementing the Customer to Action® process with a specific focus on O2’s iPhone offer online.

Despite a significant monthly volume of unique visitors it was clear that the online experience was failing, with the result that around 98% of customers who placed iPhones in their shopping basket subsequently abandoned the transaction.

At the same time, visitors to key sales pages simply left without proceeding at twice the industry average. Good Growth calculated that improving this page alone was worth around £2.8million in revenue and £1.5million in margin contribution per annum.

The target – as outlined by Good Growth – was to drive online performance to match page performance near or in the top quartile, and to apply this to every major stage in the sales funnel – and this was the opportunity within just one product. An ancillary assessment of O2’s self-serve offer also generated a major commercial opportunity.

In an initial three-month period, Good Growth implemented a customer analytics review using a range of low-cost or free-to-use tools. Importantly, these were supplemented by the acquisition of live data at point of purchase bringing the ‘voice of the customer’ into O2. This clearly demonstrated that customers shopping on the website were focused on three key questions: the best tariff for a set monthly amount; delivery times; and whether the phone was in stock. Interestingly, cost itself was not one of the leading concerns.

Lance revealed that customer insight was a real point of differentiation. “Whilst Good Growth provided robust and excellent analytics and rigorous data, it was the customer insight that supported the findings that were very revealing. The survey tools used delivered answers to qualitative questions and we were able to ascertain with some degree of certainty why customers weren’t buying and that was invaluable”.

In tandem with analytics and insight, Good Growth also focused on the organisation itself, proposing an organisational development plan to support change that would accompany structural changes that O2 had planned later that year. This focused on clearer internal mandates and a move towards more strategic planning cycles.

Good Growth’s main recommendations were taken forward by O2. “It was refreshing to have an external and independent view to highlight the main opportunities and to support these with data. Some of the key recommendations coalesced with our thinking and validated it and it has been taken forward in terms of site re-design and an easier customer journey”, said Lance.

Following this initial project, Good Growth has been retained by O2 to further drive commercial performance.