See Behind-the-Scenes of BT's Next-Gen Console Offer

BT's Objectives

• BT's PS5 Next Gen Console Launch meant they needed to control the sale of the upcoming console exclusively to their customer base.
• BT wanted to deliver a great first launch into the world of gaming - and with Black Friday approaching, they wanted to be launched in time for Christmas gifting.
• With this in mind, Uniqodo would need to manage the large anticipated increase in traffic to BT Shop so BAU (Business As Usual) retailing would not be interrupted.

Challenges to Overcome

• BT's PS5 Next Gen Console Launch would need to only be available to purchase from existing and selected BT broadband customers. As the consoles would retail via BT shop, the issue of 'existing and selected' customer verification becomes much more difficult. Customer log-ins aren’t federated with BT.com broadband customer accounts, so we needed a way to securely transition customer identifiers across the different business units to verify customer eligibility.
• Another challenge would be the anticipated increase in site visits. BT needed to guarantee that launching next-gen console purchasing would not impact BAU trading on BT Shop.
• And on top of that, as a new channel partner for Microsoft and Sony, BT needed to protect the manufacturer's reputation by delivering a great customer experience.

The Issues of the 1st Launch

The PlayStation 5 promotion was planned as an ‘exclusive’ sale for 19th November, 27th November and 3rd December.

Using the same solution for the Xbox Series X and S promotion, PlayStation 5 went live at 8 am on 19th November to selected BT customers.

Within 20 minutes, BT Shop’s site experienced significant stress with huge traffic volumes, despite press for the promotion only going out on the morning of the 19th of November on BT.com.

Between 8 am and 10 am, there was an excess of 125,000 people logged in, and by 10.30 am over 1,000 units had been sold.

With huge pent-up demand for the latest PlayStation console and knowledge that BT had available units on sale, an eager customer found a way around the content gate and posted the hack on an open voucher site.

BT Shop suddenly took hundreds of orders in a matter of minutes. Recognising that something was wrong, BT Shop pulled the deal to stop the campaign abuse and find a solution.

Promotions going wrong is our worst nightmare, but solving problems is in our DNA, so we began working to identify the issues and provide a solution.

The challenges were threefold;

• Uniqodo’s HTML could be compromised.
• BT Shop had a major traffic management issue with their queuing platform.
• BT itself had further internal challenges that required fixing.

Within 24 hours, Uniqodo came back with 5 different solutions.

Uniqodo’s 2.0 Approach

After the shortcomings of our first version solution - we quickly came to realise we needed a v2.0...

• Within 24 hours we had an API integration straight into delivery and aligned with the work that the BT team underwent to fix a multitude of issues.
• We created two buy funnels with the API and traffic management solution, protecting BAU trading whilst managing high demand for the console promotion.

The results spoke for themselves, the final PS5 promotion on 3rd December was a roaring success, with customers taking to Twitter to praise BT for their excellent customer experience and service.

Furthermore, the feedback from Sony was glowing, especially as BT was one of the only retailers to keep their site trading on the campaign dates, with GAME, John Lewis, Curry’s and Amazon all failing under the volume of demand they experienced.

In normal times, there would be physical queues at hundreds of retailers spread out up and down the country. With the nation forced to focus their attention and demands on a handful of eCommerce sites, BT & Uniqodo managed to fix a problem the rest of the UK’s retailers couldn’t solve and was a great example of how technology can successfully underpin trading, especially in the special case of 2020 when no shops were open for physical trading.

“Although no eCommerce leader wants to experience promotion problems and a customer impacting failure, to go from the challenges we faced on 19th November, to solving three contributing issues by 3rd December, that no other UK retailer could solve, was an absolute triumph. The Uniqodo team were nothing short of brilliant, responding with considered solutions in just 24 hours and working over Black Friday weekend to complete a full API integration with BT Shop. This is proof that with a little ingenuity and determination, you can create amazing digital experiences for customers in a time of real need for our customers.”‍

Duncan Rutherford - Head of eCommerce, BT Shop

Thousands of Happy Customers

10x incremental conversion rate on average purchase rate.

BT Shop achieved an 85.8% conversion rate for their exclusive PS5 promotion.

50x increase in normal demand during the promotion.