Supporting publishers
Our client is a multinational media brand servicing some of the largest names in publishing in the United States and worldwide. The module we created was bundled by the client and sold on as part of their services, including integrating it with other offerings.
What does it do?
The module we created gives companies the power to offer:
Self-service
Subscribers can manage their own subscriptions, including upgrading, downgrading and arranging payments
Support teams
Support teams can access the system as if they were the customer, so they can fix customer issues directly on request.
200+ companies
More than 200 companies working on a subscription model
1.1 milion subscribers
The platform helps to manage more than 1.1 million new subscribers per year
Business challenges
The publishing business faces difficulties converting visitors into customers, and managing subscriptions once customers do sign up. Traditional structures no longer work now that customers are familiar with more control and faster reaction times; to meet these new expectations publishers need new tools. The space faces challenges including:
User identity tracking
Identifying the same user across devices and sessions presents compliance and technical challenges, but it is vital to generate accurate data that can form the basis of marketing and content commissioning decisions.
Subscription management
Users want to manage their subscriptions themselves, and bring their digital expectations to the process, expecting to be able to modify their purchase rapidly and easily through an online portal.
Customer support and sales
Where digital tools are unavailable or not integrated, customer services and sales alike struggle to leverage them and customers are left underserved and dissatisfied.
Payments management
Traditionally, publishers left payments to banks or credit card companies. Moving payment processing into a combined product is challenging, but users expect it.
Publishers need a tool that lets customers lead the interaction, but still allows the brand to differentiate itself by superior service, as well as providing opportunities to upsell and cross-sell bundled subscriptions, provide previous editions, and more — whether that process is facilitated by customer service or by the portal itself.
Building a customer concierge service
We created a tool that addresses the key challenges faced by publishers, empowering customers to manage their own subscriptions and handing publishers the ability to offer effective support and analyse customer service employee performance.
Key features of the system
The system Lightpoint created solved the key problems publishers face in their relationships with their customers, including:
Customer service accounts access
The platform puts subscriber information in front of call center staff and lets them act on, update and alter the subscriber’s account as if they were the subscriber, by request from customers and with auditable security.
Employee performance analysis
Employee performance is recorded and can be audited and analysed, improving departmental and organizational performance and driving increases in customer satisfaction and subscriber retention.
Multi-tenancy, OS-agnostic tool
Different clients with different business logic are supported, with a multi-tenancy system in which backend and front end form a single version of the system.
Configure without reload
The algorithms that underpin the system can be configured while the application runs, without the need to reload, maintaining uptime, improving efficiency and improving customer satisfaction.
Single and social sign-on
Single sign-on and social media sign-ins maximize convenience and encourage portal use, as well as improving security by reducing attack surface.
User-led subscriptions
The system allows users to start, manage, renew and upgrade their own subscriptions, while allowing seamless access to support services when required.
Key features of the system include:
- User identity management
- Single sign on and social media login
- Fully customize the appearance and functionality of a user-friendly portal
- Let users easily upgrade and renew their own subscriptions
- Offer a streamlined, convenient payment process
- Permit redelivery requests for subscriptions
- Retail previous editions
- Let their users manage their own subscriptions
Lightpoint built the system with:
3 Front-end developers, 2 Back-end .NET developers, 1 Automation QA engineer, 1 manual QA engineer
Tech stack:
.NET Core
Angular
TypeScript
Less
Results
The system was delivered to the client ready to use, and with APIs making the process of integration easy. The client offers this tool to some of the most successful publishers in the United States and worldwide, as part of a unified toolkit to address publishers’ needs in the digital economy.
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