Company: CrownPeak Technology, Los Angeles, CA
Company Description: CrownPeak Technology provides the enterprise’s only open cloud platform for Web Experience Management. Digital marketers at large enterprises, their I.T. teams and leading agencies worldwide count on CrownPeak to launch websites fast, affordably and with less reliance on I.T. CrownPeak’s WEM platform powers personalized digital experiences across thousands of global websites.
Nomination Category: Support Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Support Department of the Year

Nomination Title: CrownPeak Supports Secure and Innovative Websites for Global Enterprise

Tell the story about what this nominated department has achieved since January 1, 2014 (up to 650 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms.

As an early pioneer of the Software-as-a-Service business model, CrownPeak envisioned a better way to provide Web Content Management (WCM) solutions which are used to deploy and manage websites for mid-size to large enterprise customers:

1. Build a robust WCM platform delivered in the cloud, eliminating the burden of configuring and managing complicated IT infrastructure;

2. Offer equally robust professional services with dedicated support staff to ensure ongoing customer success.

Because customers are essentially outsourcing their web infrastructure and site hosting to CrownPeak, the service and support function is especially critical. CrownPeak must ensure system availability, reliability, performance, security, disaster recovery and compliance controls sufficient for the business continuity of our largest global customers.

With WCM systems installed on premise, implementation teams arrive to set up the system and then disappear once the project is complete. Because CrownPeak customers subscribe to our cloud platform annually – rather than purchase perpetual software licenses – CrownPeak must remain committed to ensuring the highest levels of customer success. This commitment protects both annual revenue renewal rate and customer retention levels.

Defining Absolute Service across the customer lifecycle

Success with CrownPeak goes beyond offering a reliable and stable product. We recognize that customers must be able to grow their business using our platform. CrownPeak expands traditional definitions of software support to comprise solution consulting throughout the customer lifecycle.

“We call our customer success program ‘Absolute Service’ – it’s not just technical support,” declares Greg Aimone, VP of Customer Success. “It’s about directly forging business processes, empathetically contributing to marketing objectives, offering expert advice on all fronts, and providing paths for customers to realize continual digital growth. It’s day in and day out, from the routine to the extraordinary.”

The way CrownPeak provides ongoing service and support to its customers remains unmatched in the Web Experience Management market. Our teams regularly provide solution consulting for system testing, configuration, rollout, refresh and updates around the globe. Customers expect personal, quick service, and during business reviews we always hear that the CrownPeak support team regularly goes above and beyond.

Laying the groundwork for ongoing success and innovation

2014 was a particularly monumental year in CrownPeak’s ongoing mission to consistently offer dedicated Customer Success resources (service + support) to customers.

As the company’s customer base grows, we remain committed to offering a consistently higher level of support by providing customers with options. New additions to meet this commitment in 2014 included the development of tiered customer support plans, the expansion of global support staffing, and the development of new functions in the Customer Success group to ensure customers get the most from the platform.

Providing a reliable, “battle-tested” solution for all

CrownPeak guarantees that all of its customers enjoy the highest industry standards for their website infrastructure. That’s why top global brands choose CrownPeak, because we meet the most stringent regulatory compliance needs, backed up with an unprecedented industry-leading, 99.99% uptime.

CrownPeak demonstrated its commitment to this guarantee recently when a large healthcare services customer suffered a massive DDoS attack on its public website on the eve of its annual conference. The FBI got involved and remained in close communication with CrownPeak’s technical support staff. The scale of the attack was enormous – at its peak 86 million concurrent users were attacking the site from 100,000+ hosts around the world. The platform scaled up to handle 40X the average site traffic load. When the attack was all over 39 hours later, CrownPeak (with assistance from technology partner Amazon Web Services) had successfully defended the customer’s website in an epic battle – without system downtime. Along the way, CrownPeak demonstrated that our platform can scale to handle 20GB/second in site traffic – 40X the average load.

While this incident was particularly big and unusual, it is typical of the level of unwavering commitment that CrownPeak offers to all of its customers.

In bullet-list form, briefly summarize up to ten (10) accomplishments of the nominated department since the beginning of 2014 (up to 150 words).

1. Rolled out new multi-tiered support plans to provide customers with options to best fit different support needs.
2. Formalized our Customer Success program to include a regular review process to ensure our customers maximize their investment in CrownPeak.
3. Held first annual Partner Summit, which was an interactive and collaborative two-day technical conference covering in-depth product training, demonstrations, best practices, solution showcases, hands-on labs, and Q&A sessions. CrownPeak gained valuable feedback on how to optimize products and support.
4. Established baseline for customer satisfaction survey (50+ NPS for CrownPeak Support)
5. Decreased time to solve support tickets by 27%
6. Strengthened the IT Operations Support office in the UK, focused on global support and infrastructure.
7. Grew IT Support team member capacity in network security specialists.
8. Passed SSAE 16 SOC Type 2 audit for 3rd year in row, reflecting CrownPeak's commitment to ensuring customers meet regulatory compliance.