Comcast.com
Company: Comcast, Philadelphia, PA
Company Division/Group: Comcast.com
Company Description: Comcast is one of the nation’s largest cable, internet, phone and home security service providers for both residential and business customers. Comcast.com serves as the e-Commerce and self-service hub for all of Comcast Cable. Over the last 18 months, the company has focused on transforming its desktop and mobile experiences to maximize contributions from its online channels.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Online Sales Team of the Year\
Nomination Title: Comcast.com's Online Sales Team
Tell the story about what this nominated team achieved since the beginning of July 2011 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
Over the past several years, e-Commerce has become a core strategic focus of Comcast Cable’s growth strategy. The year 2012 represented a key turning point as Comcast implemented several major initiatives to further its goal of providing a superior customer experience via a world-class sales website. A dedicated leadership focused on innovating online sales as well as growing new channels has resulted in continuous sales performance improvements. In the past year, Comcast.com has grown online sales over 30% accounting for the majority of the company’s overall growth.
Innovation in Online Shopping:
Central to this year’s success was the launch of Comcast’s Next Generation Online Shopping Experience, delivering an entertaining and dynamic customer-centric online shopping experience. The Next Generation Online Shopping project spanned several months of user interviews, design and testing and enables
Comcast to leverage new segmentation and personalization tools to deliver its online sales campaigns. By marrying existing customer segments, 3rd party data and customer propensity information like lifetime value and competitive footprint, Comcast.com can now deliver a more targeted experience to better serve the right product to the right customer. Conversion rate has increased from 18.6% from our legacy site to 22.7% after the 100% rollout of the Next Gen Buyflow experience on Oct, 4th 2012.
Scale in Proactive Chat:
In addition to the launch of the Next Generation Online Shopping Experience, Comcast has scaled its use of proactive chat to drive growth in new customer sales and existing customer upgrades. Business rules have been implemented to trigger Comcast proactive chat events which are better tailored to meet the needs of each customer. Improvements in proactive chat have yielded a 65% lift in buyflow conversion.
Growth in Mobile:
In 2011, Comcast launched its first mobile experience by creating specific product pages to enable customers to learn and purchase products. Comcast leveraged Google Mobile Sitelinks to serve up a phone number in the search results for mobile customers. Though successful, Comcast continued to optimize the experience, enabling full end-to-end m-Commerce experience in 2012. Mobile now drives over 20% of Comcast’s online sales, and its contribution continues to grow. Google has cited Comcast as a leader in their Mobile Playbook along with other mobile e-commerce leaders such as Starwood Hotels and 1-800-Flowers.
The Comcast.com Sales Team continues to refine the sales experience due to its multi-layered approach which begins with support secured at the highest leadership levels within the company. Strategic decision making is assured via an investment committee comprised of all Comcast.com e-Commerce leaders. This committee ensures prioritization based on business impact with a continuous focus on improving the customer experience.
Teamwork, constant innovation, and a disciplined focus on measurement and optimization are at the core of how Comcast operates. These principles are why Comcast.com continues to grow as a sales channel and deliver a world class experience to its internal stakeholders and most importantly,it's customers.
Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated team:
John Williamson serves as SVP/GM of Comcast.com, responsible for the company’s digital sales and service activities.
Prior to joining Comcast, Mr. Williamson held positions at Verizon as VP e-Commerce/ e-CRM, Senior Managing Director e-Commerce at JP Morgan/Bear Stearns, and VP e-Investments at Citi. He developed online sales and customer support by driving new customer acquisition, increased utilization of digital self-service tools, and cross-selling of services through digital platforms.
During his tenure at JP Morgan/Bear Stearns, the firm was recognized on numerous occasions for its industry leading e-Commerce experiences. He developed and launched Cititrade - Citi’s online U.S. self-directed brokerage. Cititrade was consistently recognized as #1 from Smart Money for its robust suite of planning tools and on-line experience.