Brennan Oil & Heating Co.
Brennan Oil and Heating Co., Inc.—
Web Development Case Study
When at First you Don’t Succeed…
Brennan Oil and Heating Co., Inc., opened in 1966 as a residential and commercial heating oil dealer to the local community of North Providence, RI. Since then, the company has expanded into a second generation family-owned business serving over 4,000 customers in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Providing highly responsive personal service with complete technical excellence proved to be an increasing challenge as the customer base continued to grow.
To serve its customers better, the company decided to create a website where its thousands of residential customers could conveniently access helpful information, ask technical questions and pay for heating oil online. In 2001, Brennan Oil implemented a website. It provided brief contact information with a simple “pay online” feature. However, the site lacked a strategically presented marketing message and customers did not find it engaging.
Over three years, only four customers established online accounts.
The rest of the Story…
In 2004, Read Tatulli & Purdy Advertising partnered with Brennan Oil to develop a more dynamic website that would attract online customers. The business objective of the site was to sign up 200 online customers in two years. This was the number of sign ups Brennan Oil needed for the website to recoup its return on investment in saved administration and staff costs.
RTP centered the concept of the new site around the theme, “We’re in Your Neighborhood.” This concept concisely identifies and describes Brennan Oil’s essential message: expert Brennan technicians are dedicated to great personal service and are accessible at any time to every customer.
The website design is a graphic depiction of today’s Brennan Oil corporate identity. Company President Dennis Brennan is featured on the home page and represents the company’s ideal of personal integrity, professional credibility and hands-on technical expertise. The design combines the personal pride inherent in a family-owned and operated company with its commitment to technology.
The website is designed with a particular customer in mind: the residential homeowner who uses the internet to get information, make purchases and pay bills. A Brennan Oil customer can activate an online account in moments and then use the website’s secure payment section easily at any time.
The new website, www.brennanoil.com, went online in October 2004. During the initial staff training period, publicity for the site was limited to a simple statement in monthly customer invoices. Since then, site traffic has exceeded all expectations. Online customer sign ups reached 30% of the goal in just over three months, and the number is still growing. Phone time and other administrative efforts can now be redirected to other customer service needs. An email list is being compiled for timely messages, promotions and news. Company communications can be immediately posted online or e-mailed. And the theme, “We’re in Your Neighborhood”, can easily and consistently be cross-marketed to other media, such as direct mail, print ads, and broadcast as needed.
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