A regional managed service provider with around 120 staff had grown significantly over five years. What started as a break-fix IT support business had matured into a serious MSP offering managed security, cloud infrastructure, and IT strategy to mid-market organisations. They had invested in certifications, hired senior technical specialists, and built a client base that included regulated firms in financial services and professional services.
The problem was that none of this was visible online. The website was four years old and still presented the business as a general IT support company. Service descriptions were vague. There was no differentiation between what they offered and what any local IT firm could provide. The site had no case studies, no evidence of sector expertise, and no clear reason for a mid-market CFO or operations director to pick up the phone.
The commercial impact was becoming impossible to ignore. The sales director had lost three competitive pitches in the previous quarter where the prospect specifically cited the website as a concern. In one case, the feedback was blunt: the prospect assumed the firm was too small and too generalist for the contract, based entirely on what they saw online. The reality was the opposite - but the website was telling a different story.
The managing director had been quoted £220,000 by another agency for a full website rebuild, new brand identity, and content programme. Before committing to that spend, she wanted an independent view of whether a project of that scale was actually what the business needed.
"We had outgrown our website but we hadn’t outgrown our budget. The assessment told us we didn’t need to spend £220,000 to fix the problem - we needed to spend £78,000 on the right things. Six months later, the website is winning us work instead of losing it. That’s the conversation I needed to have with my board."
We ran our 14-day assessment. Two senior consultants spent the first week inside the business - interviewing the sales team, marketing, technical leadership, and three existing clients. We reviewed the current website’s traffic and conversion data, analysed competitor positioning, and mapped the gap between how the company described itself online and how its clients actually described the value they received.
The findings reframed the problem. The website’s design was dated but functional. The real issue was not how the site looked - it was what the site said. The messaging was stuck in 2019, describing a business that no longer existed. Service pages listed technical capabilities without connecting them to client outcomes. There was no content that demonstrated the firm’s depth in regulated industries. And the site had no structured conversion paths - a visitor interested in managed security landed on the same generic contact form as someone looking for printer support.
We also found that around 40% of the proposed £220,000 agency quote was for work the business did not need. The brand identity was not the problem - it was clean and professional. The firm did not need a new logo or visual overhaul. It needed its website to tell the truth about what the business had become.
We recommended a focused two-sprint approach. The first sprint would restructure the site around the three buyer personas that mattered most: IT directors evaluating managed service partners, operations leaders in regulated firms looking for a security-first provider, and CFOs comparing the cost of in-house IT against outsourcing. Every service page would be rewritten to lead with the business problem it solved, backed by specific evidence from client work.
The second sprint would build the content and conversion layer: three case studies drawn from existing client relationships, sector-specific landing pages for financial services and professional services, and a thought leadership section that positioned the firm’s senior consultants as credible voices on IT strategy for mid-market organisations. We also designed distinct enquiry paths for each buyer persona, replacing the single generic contact form.
Total estimated investment: £78,000 across two sprints. No rebrand. No platform migration. The existing Xperience by Kentico installation was capable - it just needed better content and structure.
The firm engaged Distinction for both sprints. The restructured site launched within ten weeks of the assessment completing.
Within six months, qualified enquiries through the website had tripled. These were not general IT support requests - they were mid-market organisations asking about managed security, cloud migration, and ongoing IT partnerships. The persona-specific enquiry paths meant the sales team received leads with context: who the prospect was, what they were looking for, and which service area they were interested in.
Bounce rate dropped by 42%. Visitors were staying longer and going deeper into the site, particularly on the sector-specific pages for financial services and professional services. Those two pages alone accounted for over a third of all new enquiries in the first six months.
The sales team reported an immediate change in the quality of early conversations with prospects. Three separate prospects mentioned the case studies during initial calls. Two cited the thought leadership content as the reason they had made contact. The website was no longer a liability in competitive pitches - it was actively supporting them.
The managing director estimated the assessment saved the business over £200,000 in unnecessary spend. The firm got a better commercial result from a £78,000 focused engagement than it would have from a £220,000 project that included work it did not need.
