The energy sector is booming. Consumers are critical and they window shop at different suppliers. A customer friendly website is therefore very important. Essent.nl scored a 7 among its website visitors. That could be better, thought energy supplier Essent. Two things needed to be done: an upgrade of the content management system from Tridion 5.1 to 5.2, and the implementation of a new navigation system. HintTech was called in to do the job.
‘So far, so good.’ Essent Online manager e-development Peter de Keijzer is a cautious man. The upgraded website has been live for a few months and the first signs are positive: ‘A month after the launch, we scored 7.3 among users, and now, a month later, it’s 7.4. So, yes that’s very good. But we’re not there yet. The concept must be kept monitored.’ For the time being, De Keijzer is vigilant. He knows the pitfalls all too well.
Two years previously, Essent Online was as proud as a peacock of their state-of-the-art content management system Tridion 5.1. But then something went wrong. The whole platform was further developed, bit by bit, but not according to the architecture. As a consequence, Tridion 5.1 became so big and complex that content managers found working with the system increasingly more difficult and time consuming. De Keijzer: ‘There were too many steps involved in publishing a page.’
It wasn’t only the content managers who were unhappy with the unstable system; the customers also started to grumble. The site was slow and even crashed on occasion.
A decision had to be made. It was high time for an upgrade from Tridion 5.1 to 5.2, and as soon as that was done, the next step was a new navigation design. Because, explained De Keijzer: ‘Every click is one too many. In a site which is used in 80 or 90 percent of cases by consumers, it’s not logical that on the start page you have to choose between ‘consumer’, ‘business’ and ‘corporate’.’
Essent Online, Essent’s sixty strong internal web bureau, advises, manages and carries out project management for the internal business units. But developing and building the sites is outsourced to preferred suppliers. For the upgrade from Tridion 5.1, De Keijzer sought a small partner. ‘They’re more flexible than large companies. For them, it’s their core business. HintTech was therefore on our shortlist. They’re a fully-fledged Tridion implementation partner. That means something. And we just had a good feeling about them.’
Above all, De Keijzer wanted a real sparring partner. ‘Not a “whatever you want” club, but a company that brings its own knowledge and experience to the table. One who can put on its Essent Online hat and at the same time challenge our mind set. We wanted functionality within existing templates, with as little as possible being tailor made.
So, an upgrade. But, first things first. There was already a functional design. HintTech’s first task was to take a critical look at it and to make sure that the design was one hundred percent watertight. With the memory of the overdeveloped Tridion 5.1 still fresh in their minds, the first objective was to design a simple, elegant system architecture with which the content managers could quickly and easily work. De Keijzer: ‘HintTech has a lot of experience in this area and they have a very stubborn architect. We were very happy with that.’
A fixed price was agreed for building the website. Migration of the content was a subproject within the Tridion upgrade. HintTech suggested working with a third party, Kapow Technologies, to automatically migrate the content. Ninety-five percent of the content was transferred automatically, five percent by hand. De Keijzer: ‘Even though five percent couldn’t be done automatically because of the new navigation set-up, it still saved us a lot of time. Later, we’ll be migrating more sites, and it’ll save us even more time and money.’
The results of the upgrade and the elegant architecture are already noticeable. The site has fewer disruptions and the content managers are happy that it’s easier to work with.
The second step was to develop a new navigation design. The consumer visiting Essent.nl now goes directly to the consumer environment, instead of a general start page. He now needs fewer clicks to find what he wants; for instance, the meter registration, the members’ area ‘Mijn Essent’, or the customer service page.
Essent Online is satisfied with the achievements. That means that HintTech can look forward to partnering Essent in further developing the site and in the application management of Tridion 5.2.
Also planned, upgrades to 5.2 for the other Essent sites; Essentnetwerk.nl and Essent.eu. And De Keijzer? He’s watching like a hawk to make sure that the HintTech architects maintain the simplicity of the Tridion 5.2. Because simplicity is the key. That’s the lesson he learned from Tridion 5.1.
Results HintTech achieved the following results for Essent Online:
HintTech develops websites and web applications for large organizations. From concept to application management, HintTech's full service offering enables you to control your Internet channel. With innovative web content management products such as... Read more about HintTech
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