Rogers revamps customer portal

I logged into my Rogers account last night to check on my bandwidth usage and was pleasantly surprised to discover Rogers has revamped their customer portal -- called MyRogers -- and has made it much easier and enjoyable to use.

It wasn't terrible before. It got the job done. But from what I recall (it's funny how memory slips after only a day), the earlier iteration was generally uninspiring and consisted of basic text links that took you to various wireless, cable, Internet and home phone pages. I have visited the site several times in the past to check how much bandwidth I'd used or to investigate different wireless, cable and Internet plans, and never found it exceptionally difficult to get around. But in retrospect, I see now that the earlier version lacked a certain user-friendliness that the new MyRogers has in spades.

MyRogers now displays five tabs across the top of the frame, just below the navigation menu, ranging from a general overview of you account information and services to more task-specific pages such as Wireless Plans & Packages. Watch their video demo for a closer look (but ouch, skip the intro and turn that horrible techno-vibe music off right away).

Richard Bloom of Rogers runs down some of the new features in a Red Board blog post.

The default Overview page shows several modules that each deal with a different service or function, including my account and billing information and wireless, TV and Internet services.

What grabbed my attention immediately was that the wireless and Internet modules show very clearly how much voice, data, texting and bandwidth I've used so far this month -- a great aid to keep tabs on usage. The wireless fragment -- which shows an image of my and my wife's phones -- can display how many daytime/weekend/evening voice minutes have been used (and how many are left), plus another window for data and another for texting.

Each of the modules also has clear and helpful links to do things like check the details of your various plans, check your services usage history, change or update billing and profile information -- basically everything you need to self-service your accounts. You can add or cancel magazine subscriptions, reset your digital TV box and add or change your default e-mail address. Yes, you could do most of that on the old site, but now it's just easier to navigate and all right there in front of your eyes.

There's also a module on the overview page for support questions, including links to a library of tutorial videos (which I never knew they had) and a module for live chat with Rogers support. I suspect the average customer is still more comfortable calling tech support rather than researching issues on the site, but it's useful for some.

And while there's still a lot of upselling, with links to buying ring tones and such, I'm frankly impressed with the level of access I now have to my information and consider it a very nice change.