Rackspace: Convincing customers

Video case studies are the centrepiece of customer support marketing.

The Site

Rackspace, a provider of internet hosting services, makes video the centrepiece of its customer support marketing.

Rackspace’s home page is dominated by a screen-wide promotional panel for Fanatical Support, its trademarked back-up service. The panel carries a photograph of a happy-looking customer and a quote from him that is overlaid on a red strip also bearing the Fanatical Support logo and an invitation to ‘Watch my story’.

The invitation leads to a Customer Videos page where a viewing screen is ready-loaded with the highlighted video alongside two galleries of Featured Videos and the full case study collection, ‘In Their Words. Not Ours.’. Apart from a clips compilation each video features a named individual talking to camera and has its own index which displays while it is being played and can be used to jump from topic to topic. A separate set of four ‘shorts’ is screened on the home page of the site’s Fanatical Support section, with a link to the main collection.

The Takeaway

Dominant promotional panels are something of a favoured flavour on home pages at the moment with technology and related services companies. Where Rackspace runs a bit further with the fashion is in making video and real customers the focus of the feature. Where it’s worth noting is in its assured execution and appropriateness. If your business is based on hosting, putting your customers in front of the cameras and centre stage on the most valuable piece of web estate you have sends out a strong message about your confidence in what you do and your customers’ confidence in you.

Case studies and testimonials can make powerful, engaging content whether they are in careers, corporate responsibility or marketing. Video provides a more intimate medium for them than text, though this means getting the tone and presentation right to maintain credibility with visitors whose ever-increasing visual literacy is raising the authenticity threshold. Rackspace’s simple ‘to camera’ format exposes its witnesses to closer scrutiny but is the more convincing for it if they come across as genuine in their enthusiasm. Add an interesting range of customers and useful aids such as the ‘jump index’ and you have a compelling promotion.

Declaration of interest: our site is hosted by Rackspace.

First published on 15 January, 2008