Award for company's digital platform

(From left): Rosemary Bourne-Webb, Steve Bunce, Matt Demler, Jason Wright, Dimitri Kramer, Jason Small, Mark Kerins, Wayne Ramshaw, and Anwen Hall. Photo / Supplied

Tauranga-based energy and telecoms company Trustpower and its digital services partner, Cucumber, were winners at the 2014 Sitecore Experience Awards for Australia and New Zealand, taking the ROI Award and the Retail, Wholesale and Consumer Goods Award.

This year, Sitecore awarded only 19 organisations across Australasia and Trustpower and Cucumber were the only New Zealand recipients, said Clare Swallow, Cucumber's general manager for digital.

Wayne Ramshaw, Trustpower's digital channel manager, said the company had ambitious goals to become New Zealand's leading multi-utility provider, and its new website was a significant channel to market for the company for new customer acquisition and to better serve existing customers.

"We recently repositioned from an electricity company to a true multi-product service provider, with products across power, gas, phone and internet," said Mr Ramshaw.

"Our new website allows us to personalise the customer experience and drive one-on-one engagement with every customer at every online touchpoint, at any time and on any device. We believe that it's also a first for New Zealand by giving customers the ability to see all their electricity, reticulated gas, LPG bottled gas, phone and broadband services in a single view."

Trustpower's site is hosted in the cloud to allow the company to respond to surges in demand, easily and quickly. The site was built on Sitecore 6.6 and integrates with TP's Gentrack Velocity (CIS), the Trustpower product catalogue and Salesforce CRM.

Mr Ramshaw said the results have exceeded the targets Trustpower set prior to going live, with significant increases in the number of new customers acquired online and number of services used by each customer, as well as decreases in customer churn and the cost of customer acquisition.

"The responsive design also works well. Our old site was not optimised for mobile devices, but now over 20 per cent of site visitors are using mobiles, and a significant portion of all new customer acquisitions are via mobile."

Mr Ramshaw said that, together with Cucumber, the company had come up with an innovative solution that had reduced the complexity of marketing, while providing a more personalised experience for each customer.

Ms Swallow, the recent winner of a Westpac Millennial Women of Influence award, said the awards reinforced Cucumber's reputation for redefining how companies delivered personalised and seamless experiences through sophisticated websites that connected with customers.

"As consumers shift their attention from buying products to buying experiences, the focus of business is also shifting. It's no longer enough for a company to offer great products or services - now it must also offer great online experiences.

"We're particularly proud to win the coveted ROI Award. This is the pinnacle of awards, with ROI the ultimate measure of success for any digital solution."