Virgin Life Care, the Cape Town-headquartered lifestyle management specialist which is part of the international Virgin Group, made a well-researched decision a year ago to contract Rackspace Hosting to host the Customer Engagement engine so critical to Virgin Life Care's core service provision.
“We needed an environment that would offer reliability, fast Internet bandwidth and flexibility for growth,” said Virgin Life Care managing director Andre Dique. “The lifestyle management of members forms the core of the services we offer and reliable, quick real-time communication is therefore most important.”
This dictated that Virgin Life Care had to select a hosting partner that would meet very specific requirements at a reasonable price and be able to provide support during South African business hours.
Dique added that Rackspace achieved high scores in most of the categories that were evaluated and the price of high bandwidth was attractive, particularly when compared with local hosting service providers.
A large portion of Virgin Life Care's customer interaction and communication is conducted in real-time. Batched communications are run at night and the real-time communication occurs whenever people interact with any of Virgin Life Care's contact points. Such contact could typically be a member obtaining a high blood pressure reading on one of the self-measure kiosks (HealthZone), which would automatically trigger an e-mail alert with information about the condition or a telephone contact from a lifestyle coach.
“Rackspace has consistently achieved the high levels of availability that we require and since launching we have not experienced any major problems,” said Dique. “All the small teething problems that invariably occur in any new project were quickly and efficiently sorted out.”
There are three factors that Virgin Life Care considers very special in the services provided by Rackspace, according to Dique.
* Firstly, the price of the Internet bandwidth ensures the Customer Engagement program is cost effective;
* Secondly, the way that the service is provided and maintained allows Virgin Life Care to focus on its core business without having to worry about infrastructure; and
* Thirdly, the proactive manner in which Rackspace communicates and interacts with Virgin Life Care, keeping the company informed about services and specials that spark interest or stimulate thought about new ways of doing things.
Virgin Life Care products and services are all focused on improving people's lifestyles, using simple, effective technology to enable people to set goals, monitor and track their progress and celebrate their successes no matter where they are.
Dique said some of the technologies are quite remarkable, such as an automated health-measuring kiosk called a HealthZone, which allows people to measure their weight, body fat percentage and blood pressure - all key health indicators.
A pedometer-based programme called The GoZone allows members to set goals and issue personal or group challenges to optimise participation and member engagement and there are various other online services that can be accessed from the Web site.
“Where members require a more personal intervention, we have a tele-coaching team that encourages people through difficult times and also provides very important personalised programmes, advice and guidance around healthy living,” said Dique.
“We pride ourselves on helping ordinary South Africans to improve their lifestyles by making small healthy choices and changing bad habits. Our ability to inspire thousands of people to significantly improve their quality of life really excites us.”
In 2009 Virgin Life Care plans to take each member's journey to the next level of engagement, which will allow staff to travel alongside each individual member through highs and lows, motivating when necessary and celebrating when goals are achieved. This, added Dique, is where the Rackspace Hosting service will be of utmost importance.
“We have also invested more than R3 million in software development alone over the past year to improve our systems and make our services more accessible to the broader community. We are excited by the possibilities and opportunities that will stem from this.”
Another development in 2009 will be expansion into new markets through Virgin Life Care's partnership with major South African pharmacy chain, the Clicks Group. The partnership will enable Virgin Life Care's services to be more relevant to the medical insurance market, offering a broader national range of preventative healthcare services.
Major clients include Virgin Active clubs, medical aids and life insurance companies.
“Virgin is a powerful international organisation with strong branding and a reputation for entrepreneurial flair, identifying opportunities and seizing upon them with vigour and enthusiasm supported on a platform of sound planning and investment,” commented Rackspace spokesperson for the South African market, Geoff Dowell.
“Our hosting services give Virgin Life Care the ability to communicate quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively with its growing customer base while at the same time providing those customers with impressive added-value services. We are proud to be of service to such an innovative, energetic and successful organisation.”
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