Why a Big Win for Calix is an Even Bigger Win for our Customers

Every year, the Oracle Markie Awards recognize organizations that use technology, expertise, and creativity to deliver superior customer experiences. This year, we were delighted to win the Markie for Best B2B (Business to Business) Commerce Experience, for My Calix Store. Team Lead and Calix Business Solutions Architect Douglas Berringer spoke with Calix CMO Matt Collins about My Calix Store and what the site and the win mean for our customers.

Matt: What is My Calix Store?

Doug: Usually, helping service providers build, manage, and maintain their networks requires considerable two-way communication. These are high-touch relationships, but there are times when a customer knows exactly what they need. When that happens, we want to make sure they don’t have to call their Calix Account Manager, wait for a quote to be generated, and only then, place their order. So, we set out to create a business ecommerce store that works the same way as a consumer ecommerce site, allowing them to search, browse, generate quotes, and place their orders with a single visit. The result is My Calix Store.

Matt: How have customers reacted?

Doug: The primary way we gauge our success is through customer adoption.  If our customers don’t have a good experience on the site, they won’t use it, and they’ll continue to engage our sales team. So far, more than 60 percent of our customers have adopted My Calix Store. They’ve also emailed us to tell us they’ve been waiting for something like this, and they appreciate how easy and fast it is to place their orders.

That’s not all. Now that our sales team no longer has to manage much of the day-to-day quoting and have more time to collaborate with customers and solve more complex issues.

Matt: How did you introduce it to your customers?

Doug: With the help of our implementation partner Object Edge, we launched the site and started asking a few of our customers to help us with beta testing. Once we were confident that the site was stable and addressed their needs with all the required functionality, we rolled it out to our expanded pool of customers.

Matt: What does the Oracle Award mean to your customers?

Doug: I think when you get recognition like this from one of the world’s leading tech companies, it validates what you’re doing. It adds credibility to the same messages we're getting from our customers, that we are delivering a superior B2B customer experience.

The My Calix Store is available to all registered Calix Community members. If your account is not currently enabled to take advantage of the My Calix Store, please contact your account representative.