DirecTV Inc. plans to relaunch its Web site this summer with enhanced customer services, including the ability to access account information, pay bills and order services and programming.
The improvements are designed to stem recent customer service problems, DirectTV said.
“Our goal is to provide our customers with more online convenience, easy-to-use tools and information for self-care and transactions,” said Kevin Schoeler, vice president of e-business at DirecTV, El Segundo, CA. “In return, DirecTV will benefit from enhanced customer satisfaction and new efficiencies across the company, especially in its sales and customer service organization.”
Last month, DirecTV was unable to connect about 110,000 East Coast customers because of severe winter weather conditions. Installations were hampered by growing demand for multi-receiver satellite systems, which limit the number of hookups an installer can complete each day.
Schoeler said the revamped site will help customers find answers to their questions and schedule a hookup date online rather than putting up with long telephone hold times. DirecTV tapped Agency.com, New York, to redesign the site. DirecTV previously worked with Agency.com to bring its order processing system online.
“[We're] moving them more toward a self-service model so that DirecTV customers, 24 hours a day, will be able to take control of anything that they would normally do during business hours with a customer service rep,” said Mike Benyo, regional president at Agency.com.
“What is currently on DirecTV.com is a lot of information, and to some extent, it's fairly difficult to find the information that you want. Part of what we will be doing is a complete re-branding and a lot of focus on the navigation and access to the information.”
Agency.com will monitor DirecTV.com to see how people are using the site and which areas get the most traffic.
DirecTV beams its service to about 9.5 million customers.
