The cloud platform ‘Kraken’ has already revolutionised the energy industry and is contracted to serve 30 million customer accounts across 14 countries including the UK, the US, Japan, Australia and a large portion of mainland Europe. 

Octopus Energy was Kraken’s first client and rapidly grew because of its quick and efficient service enabled by the tech platform. It is now the second largest energy supplier in the UK and the only one that has been recommended by consumer champion Which? for six years in a row.   

National internet service provider Cuckoo was launched in 2020 by digital entrepreneurs set on shaking up telecoms in the same way by insisting on obsessive focus around customers, and calling for better industry standards. 

Kraken will enable the replication of Octopus’ famously efficient operating model which reduces the cost-to-serve by up to 40% and leads to better client and employee satisfaction. It delivers over 100 releases a day supported by automatic testing, giving faster development compared to competitors. It also makes it easier for customers to solve their own issues.

Deepak Ravindran, CEO of Kraken Utilities, said: “We're absolutely thrilled to sign Cuckoo as our first licensee in the Telecom industry. We see a lot of similarities in Octopus and Cuckoo - one has disrupted its sector, the other is about to - and both thanks to Kraken. Cuckoo customers are about to experience first class service.”

Tommy Toner, Co-Founder and Chief Experience Officer of Cuckoo, said: “We set up Cuckoo in the depths of the pandemic because we had the burning drive to make the broadband experience better. We’ve grown quickly, but to drive real change, we need the tech prowess and operational expertise that Kraken will unlock. We’re delighted to be their first broadband client.”

Development work begins now, with the intention of starting to migrate Cuckoo customers to its own Kraken-enabled in-house tech platform in the next few months.

Utilities software Kraken licences first ever broadband deal

Kraken Utilities, part of Octopus Energy Group, has landed its first broadband deal by licensing to disruptor Cuckoo. The deal was struck within a year of the launch of Kraken Utilities, which was created to take Kraken to utilities beyond energy, such as broadband and water. 

Because just like a toddler’s eating habits, circumstances can suddenly and inexplicably change. And if this means a customer needs to switch, we don't want them to feel like they're simply stuck with us.

Nor do we want to make them jump through hoops, spin round ten times without falling over, or promise to name their newborn Cuckoo, just so they can get another provider.

We’re more than aware that this bucks the trend. Historically, customer onboarding flows have received the industry’s love and attention. But that’s come at a cost, which has resulted in – speaking plainly – truly dreadful leaving experiences for broadband customers. Glitches, delays, fines… you name it, people have complained about it.

Which got us thinking: what if we did this differently? What if we made leaving, sort of… well, great?

Heading abroad? Moving home? Or simply bored with award-winning customer service? Whatever the reason, we’ve made leaving really, really easy. Any time you like. No exit fees to speak of.

Simply log in to your Cuckoo account. Hit “Start Cancellation” and select the month you want to leave us.

We’ll ask you to tell us why you’re leaving (so we can keep improving things for the future) and where to send the router return bag (so we can recycle it. but that’s it). TA-DA! You’ve left Cuckoo! And no nasty charge to leave us, no matter how long you’ve been a customer.

All via a fully-automated system on our very own bespoke platform. And, whenever possible, there’s no human touchpoint needed, so our Broadband Eggsperts are freed up to work on other service needs.

This means actively avoiding the UX tricks we’ve seen others employ in the past (no chasing buttons around the screen with your cursor here, thank you very much). Instead, UX Design focuses on straightforward choices, clear communication and accessibility.

By creating positive friction we ensure our customers understand any parts of the process that might impact them, such as returning their router. Numerous memory recall prompts throughout the flow help decrease cognitive load and improve inclusivity for neurodivergent customers. Finally, we  introduce future opportunities for retention that firmly puts the onus on us, and not the customer.

Because here’s the thing: we firmly believe that making it easy to leave actually helps us improve our service. When customers know they can leave at any time, they're more likely to provide honest feedback about what they like and don't like about our service. And this feedback helps us identify areas we can improve and make changes that benefit all of our customers.

By allowing customers to leave at any time, it forces us to be better in other areas of the business. We simply can’t afford to not deliver a fantastic service. It keeps us on our toes to always strive for better and to find and fix our blind spots.

And if this customer’s review is anything to go by, it seems to be working.

These guys are cuckoo in a very good way! I have been with Cuckoo for over a year and I am very gutted to leave them as the new property I'm moving into has a lengthy contract with a different provider. I have to say that Cuckoo make leaving them so easy and problem-free so that you don't wish to leave them anymore. They make it very bittersweet. :) And now I am on a mission to preach Cuckoo to my new landlord (and everyone I meet) and get back into the flock asap. Thank you guys for being cuckoo! :)

No, BeanGauze, thank YOU for being part of the flock.

A customer that leaves is still a customer

We treat a customer who’s left as a customer taking a pause. Or better yet, they’re still a customer – just a dormant one. Hibernating, if you will.

Because if they have a positive experience as they leave (like, loving how easy it is to cancel) it actually improves brand perception and increases their chance of being a return customer.

There’s a theory called peak-end rule a psychological heuristic which asserts that people largely judge an experience based on how they felt at two specific moments – at the peak or most intense point and at its end.

The broadband industry is obsessed with retention rates. And, at face value, that’s no bad thing. Managing churn is very important. But it’s not just about limiting the number of cancellations. For us, it’s about the product lifecycle objective.

Every product will experience churn at some point. It’s unavoidable. But if the product’s leave journey is a nightmare and creates negative friction (like charging extortionate exit fees) then it’s highly likely the customer won’t ever return. Worse, if they throw some shade in a review, there’s a good chance that future prospects will be influenced by this too and choose an alternative.

But creating a positive influence on the leaving process is a strategic choice, focused on the product’s longer-term lifecycle. And it’s one we’ve embraced whole-heartedly.

We’ve invested a huge amount of time and love into making our leave journey as smooth and simple as possible. In most cases, at the very literal click of a button. And even though its main purpose isn’t to make people change their minds, it can also have this effect. Over to you, Jonathan P…

I found a better deal (lower price) elsewhere so started the process of cancellation online. Everything was so clear and effortless compared to other providers. You weren't fighting me constantly, you just made it easy to cancel. This is the level of customer service other providers should strive for..

Final thoughts (then we’ll leave you in peace)

For too long, customers have faced misery and frustration when they wanted to leave their broadband provider, resulting in negative experiences and a whole load of ill will.

But not only is there no need for this, it’s actually counter intuitive. The smart move is to make the leaving process as good as every other part of the customer experience. This creates a more honest and useful relationship with the customer, and makes them far more likely to return in the future.

So if you're a Cuckoo customer and need to leave, then be under no illusions: we’re very, very sorry to see you go. But rest assured, it’ll be the speediest, easiest and friendliest break-up you’ve ever had. And if at some point in the future you want to return, we’ll be ready and waiting.

At Cuckoo, we believe people should have the freedom to choose their broadband provider, without feeling trapped or locked into something that’s not working for them. That’s why we’ve made it super easy for our customers to leave if they need to. 

Easy go, easy come - why we made leaving Cuckoo simple

Fern Trading Limited today announced that it is consolidating Jurassic Fibre, Swish Fibre, Giganet and AllPoints Fibre into a single Fibre To The Premises (FTTP) operating entity to accelerate full-fibre delivery in the UK.

The combined group’s Internet Service Provider (ISP) brands will accelerate delivery of a ‘fast and fair’ full fibre offering for retail customers across the enlarged network.

The businesses will combine their regional operations and create a national wholesale network during the course of 2023.

The industry has seen considerable investment and growth in recent years as operators build market momentum and value. The unification of the four businesses will enable them to combine their resources, knowledge and expertise to hasten and grow full fibre network access across the UK. 

Jarlath Finnegan, currently CEO of Giganet, will lead the combined group moving forward. He said: “All four companies are excited to build upon the solid foundations they have built over the last few years as a combined force. Together, we will become even stronger through exceptional customer service, combined with a relentless focus on technology and product. We’re looking forward to expanding our presence across the country and providing even more customers with access to full fibre connectivity”.

John Browett, chairman of Fern Trading’s fibre division, said: “In the coming years, the UK fibre market is going to experience exponential change, driven by the massive need to ensure homes and businesses in every part of the UK have access to a fast and fairly priced internet service. We expect to see continued consolidation within the industry, and by combining these successful businesses now, we will be in a fantastic position to take advantage of those market opportunities as they unfold. Our ambitions have always been high, but today represents the start of even bolder aspirations for our place in the UK fibre sector”.

Fern brings together its retail and wholesale fibre businesses to accelerate UK fibre deployment

Cuckoo was founded in early 2020 with the aim of becoming Britains best Internet Service Provider (ISP). To help us achieve this goal we adopt both a Cloud First and Serverless First approach to technology. In this article I’ll cover what exactly that means and how we go about it. 

In years gone by companies would purchase, run and manage the servers their software ran on. This would be done on-premise in a mini datacenter setup just for themselves. They would have to consider upfront how much compute power and storage they’d need. Often this would lead to overspending on hardware in an attempt to future proof their capacity. Not only that, they would need in-house expertise to manage such things as networking, storage backups, redundant power, operating system (OS) upgrades etc etc.

Amazon were all too aware of this from their own experiences. So they set out to offer IT infrastructure services to businesses, now commonly known as cloud computing, and hence Amazon Web Services (AWS) was born. Companies no longer needed to make upfront costly infrastructure decisions, rather they could pay for what they use and services could scale inline with the demands of the business. Fast forward to today and AWS is comprised of over 200 such services.

Cloud First at Cuckoo means cloud services are preferred and considered before any other options. AWS is key to this strategy and is the backbone of our technology platform. Additionally we favour Serverless technologies wherever possible as it allows us to run our applications without thinking about the servers they run on. Some other benefits of Serverless include a “pay for what you use” pricing model and horizontal scaling based on workload.

We find that Serverless naturally helps us model our software better, by encouraging the breakup of workloads up into smaller logical chunks that can be parallelised. Some of the key AWS services we use in this space are:

In order to manage and provision these systems we practice infrastructure as code (IaC). This means we maintain a set of machine readable files describing exactly what services to provision, how they’re configured and what security permissions apply etc. This approach ensures we have reproducible environments at the click of a button practically, and protects us against unintended changes (either accidental or malicious). We store these files in version control alongside our regular source code, meaning we inherently maintain a version history of what has changed and who made those changes.

Our choice of tool for IaC is the AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK). The main advantage of the CDK for us is that we’re able to use a familiar programming language. In our case this is TypeScript but it also supports other languages like Python, Java, .NET, and Go. With all the features of the programming language you chose at your disposal, you’re able to easily setup what would otherwise be complex infrastructure. The documentation is also excellent. It’s a great product and I highly recommend you give it a chance. One drawback of the CDK is that it only deals with AWS, unlike Terraform for example, but for our use case this isn’t an issue.

All the pieces outlined above play an integral part in our bespoke technology platform and wider cloud strategy. They helps us deliver (at pace) a highly secure, available and resilient platform. 

If you’d like to help us redefine what people can expect from their broadband provider, we’re hiring for a number of positions at the moment. Go check them out!

Utilities software Kraken licences first ever broadband deal

More from Cuckoo

Easy go, easy come - why we made leaving Cuckoo simple

Fern brings together its retail and wholesale fibre businesses to accelerate UK fibre deployment

Introduction to Cuckoo's Cloud Strategy

How fast can you go?