ESi Controls designs, develops, and manufactures high quality heating and hot water control products at accessible prices to help their customers navigate the rising cost of living.
Their products help reduce energy consumption, lower bills and are available nationwide from plumber’s merchants.
They have seen good growth in recent years, bringing new products to a competitive market. To support the growth of the business, they identified that their digital presence needed an overhaul.
ESi Controls had a website that was difficult to maintain. It was built using an outdated system, which lacked the features they desired and could not be updated without the intervention of a web developer. A new website had to address these core issues:
Before we began creating the website, it was important that we understood the types of people who would be using it.
The outcome of our discovery was that these users can be broken down into three types:
With this information, we decided to split the project into two core deliverables. The first would be a content managed website, where ESi could manage the content. This deliverable is most relevant to retailers, but installers and consumers will often find themselves on the homepage as a starting point.
The second deliverable of the project is a “support” website where ESi will publish documentation and other detailed information about their products. It was important that the information on this website was structured to allow users to easily find their way to the product and information they are looking for.
Having a website that is easy to manage, and which is visually appealing helps to keep the content fresh.
We chose a popular content management system (CMS) for this project. This gives the ESi team full control of their website content, allowing them to upload new products, create new articles and amend any data as is required. This has fully empowered their team to be able to create new content for marketing by utilising the visual page builder’s functions.
The product catalogue is the backbone of the website’s content. They were previously unable to update the website without the help of their existing web developer, so the new CMS makes it very easy to add new products and manage the existing ones.
Each individual product contains the required information, and links across to the support website where additional documentation can be found. By crosslinking the sites, we quickly resolved issues for the users who may end up in the wrong area, by guiding them to the more relevant section of the website, all achieved in a seamless manner.
Compatible products are also configured allowing users to make more informed choices about the products of interest to them. From the backend ESi can simply link these products together to show compatibility. This is particularly useful when installers are designing heat control systems as it allows them to quickly access all compatible products from one area.
To form a positive experience with their brand, ESi wished to provide easy access to information about their products. Their products are stamped with QR codes which link to explainer videos, instruction manuals and other product documentation.
To achieve this, we developed a plugin to generate branded QR codes. The plugin is designed and built allows them to create unique QR codes linking to relevant web pages, products or documents.
The plugin allows for QR codes with trackable links to be generated enabling the marketing team to track campaigns linked to the QR codes.ESi Controls can now analyse if visitors are scanning QR codes on the products to view instruction manuals, or if they are looking at their latest products by scanning the QR code on an exhibition banner or flyer.
This allows ESi to make informed marketing decisions on where best to place their QR codes to meet their marketing objectives.
We conducted keyword research to discover which keywords were popular search terms for their industry. These keywords were then incorporated into the copy across the the webpages to bolster their ranking within search engine result pages (SERPs).
We also carried out speed optimisations to reduce page loading times and provide a more positive experience for its users. This ensures ESi have the best chance of being discovered in search engine results by their target audience.
The product support website allows quick access to various information about their product ranges. The installation guides, operator manuals and technical specification documents are all included.
This website is designed for consumers who have purchased a product and need support, or as technical reference resource for fitters who may be researching suitable products or installing them.
This addressed one of ESi’s core objectives – to reduce the amount of time the customer service team spent handling product queries.
The first part of our approach to streamline ESi’s efforts was to work with the ESi Controls team to establish the most common reasons why customers contacted them for support. We looked at what product information was already available to the public, before designing a user journey to make the information more accessible.
We collated commonly asked questions via phone and email and worked with ESi Controls to provide in-depth answers. These were built into FAQs that address the most common issues consumers, retailers and installers face. These FAQs can be assigned to specific product categories as well as individual products, providing highly relevant information to the user. The FAQs can be updated from a single source which are dynamically populated across all relevant areas of the websites.
The second part to mitigate against preventable product queries was to create a document repository to store and organise all the relevant instruction manuals and installations guides. Similar to the FAQs, these documents could be assigned to products or product ranges, allowing end users and installation professionals to quickly find the information they require.
As access to these was quite frequently required in remote areas with potentially poor cellular networks, we decided to make the support site as lightweight as possible to reduce the demand on device and connection. The aim was to create a website that is simple, clean and distraction free.
More recently, ESi Controls have launched an EV charger product. The product now features prominently on the website, as they look to bring affordable car chargers to UK homes.
To build this into the existing website, we discussed ideas with ESi about how they would like to feature this as part of the site. We weighed up options about whether it needed its own website, or if it was attractive to existing ESi website users and concluded on the latter of the two.
Since the launch of the project, we have worked closely with ESi Controls to develop the website even further. Enhancements include a “data driven” rework to the structure of the homepage along with the addition of new data fields to the products’ to provide further information and enhance the user experience.
Since the launch of the new website, there has been a significant improvement in their key performance indicators that indicates the objectives were met and, in many cases, surpassed.
Weaving Webs Limited is a company registered in England and Wales. Registered number: 03739247.
Registered office: Weaving Webs Ltd, The Den, Bridge Street, Buckingham, MK18 1EL. VAT reg no: 277 6535 60
