News 2007
Virginmobile.co.uk named telecom website of the year
04/01/2007
04.01.07: Virgin Mobile’s website Virginmobile.co.uk was named the best telecom website in the Website of the Year Awards 2006. The site, built by interactive media agency Conchango, was judged on content, navigation and design.
Virginmobile.co.uk was re-launched in 2006. This involved replacing legacy systems with a new resilient platform to cater for forecast growth; the introduction of a content management system as well as a comprehensive design make-over to allow easier use and navigation of the site.
Brendan Cooling, General Manager of Online for Virgin Mobile, said: “Being voted best telecom website by UK Internet users ahead of all other telecoms sites in the UK proves that we have achieved our goal.
“We’re particularly thrilled that we’ve won this award as it reflects the effort and energy the team spent on delivering a site which combines a strong, original design, with an easy to use, intuitive interface.”
The judging process captures and analyses the needs, expectations, behaviour and experience the customer actually receives as well as looks at the content on the site and how it’s presented.
When the site was rebuilt one of the main aims was to enable customers to purchase or upgrade to contract phones. Since the new look virginmobile.co.uk went live, Virgin Mobile’s core direct sales have increased by more than 40%. This is also testament to the site’s superior design and functionality.
Paul Dawson, Head of Interactive Media for Conchango said: “The team spent a great deal of time finding the balance between Virgin Mobile’s business objectives and understanding what its customers wanted from the site. This award goes to show that we’ve managed to combine both successfully.”
Notes to editors:
| Virgin Mobile | |
| Jo Baker Head of Media Relations: | jo.baker@virginmobile.com |
| Mobile: | 07941 233 300 |
| Virgin Mobile Press Office: | 0845 600 6272 |
 | |
| Conchango | |
| Lorraine Branch PR Manager: | lorraine.branch@conchango.com |
| Tel: | 020 7261 4444 |
| Web: | www.conchango.com |
| |
| Conchango Team at Firefly Communications | |
| Email: | ConchangoTeam@fireflycomms.com |
| Tel: | 020 7346 1400 |
About Virgin Mobile
Virgin Mobile is the UK’s largest mobile virtual network operator and uses T-Mobile's network. Since its launch in November 1999, Virgin Mobile has attracted more than 4 million customers.
Virgin Mobile is part of the ntl:Telewest group. The group is the first to be able to offer `quadruple play’ to customers: mobile and fixed line telephony, broadband internet and television.
In the UK, Virgin Mobile phones are available direct on 0845 6000 600; on the web at
www.virginmobile.co.uk or on the high street at approximately 5,000 outlets including Virgin Mobile Stores within Virgin Megastores and selected WHSmiths, The Carphone Warehouse, The Link, Phones 4 U, Currys.digital, Comet, Tesco, Asda, John Lewis, Argos, Woolworths, Toys R Us, Ryman, web retailer Dial-a-phone plus hundreds of independent mobile phone dealers and available via Shop Direct/Littlewoods, Grattan and Empire home shopping channels.
Virgin Mobile Pay Monthly (contract) is currently available in Virgin Mobile Stores, The Carphone Warehouse, The Link, Phones 4u, at concessions in WHSmith and from www.virginmobile.co.uk.
Virgin Mobile employs approximately 1,700 staff at three sites, Trowbridge, London and Daventry, and has an outsourced customer service centre operated by approximately 200 staff in Middlesbrough.
Virgin Mobile was voted 22nd in the Best Workplaces in the UK Financial Times survey for 2006. Virgin Mobile was honoured at Management Today’s Most Admired Companies Awards 2006, being voted the best company for the Ability to Attract, Develop and Retain Top Talent.
Virgin Mobile is offering its customers 3p per minute Virgin to Virgin voice calls in the UK until March 31st 2007. For more details please go to www.virginmobile.co.uk.
About Conchango
Conchango was established in 1991 to deliver business and consumer solutions through the effective and innovative use of technology. Conchango helps organisations look at new ways to improve the way they interact with customers and suppliers, through the use of customer-centred techniques. Clients also look to Conchango to support them in future technology investment decisions and build enterprise applications across a variety of media and technology platforms.
Conchango’s skillset and approach is an integrated one that puts the skills of consumer knowledge and brand understanding alongside deep technology development and systems integration skills.
The results are applications, websites, kiosks and mobile applications that are useful, usable, robust and accessible, first time out.
Conchango’s approach is to focus on initiatives that deliver the greatest tangible improvement for their clients’ businesses. This is achieved by adopting the Scrum approach to Agile software programming, whereby development teams deliver bite-sized chunks of complex projects in 30-day “sprints”.
Conchango have worked hard to integrate the disciplines of User-Centred Design (UCD) and Agile development methodologies that have traditionally not blended well. Having worked with both these approaches for several years now, Conchango has a mature model that enables Agile projects to leverage the best of UCD and branding.
In 2003, Conchango won the Information Management Award and received the Microsoft Certified Partner Award for best business intelligence solutions. Conchango has also won awards for Best Websites for Virgin Atlantic and Nectar.com.
Conchango’s main market areas are Retail, CPG and Financial Services. Customers include: Britvic Soft Drinks Ltd, Boots, Bristol & West, Capital One, Chevron, HMV, Lloyd’s, Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Virgin Atlantic Airways and Virgin Mobile. Its strategic partners include Microsoft, BEA, Panorama, Ab Initio and Vodafone.
Headquartered in the UK, Conchango has offices in London, Surrey and New York.
