CRM - November 2007 - (Page 43)

NAILING IT DOWN For more than half a century, Medina, Minn.– headquartered Rockler Woodworking and Hardware has provided its customers with hardware, tools, wood products, and finishing, along with woodworking plans, books, and videos. The company, which has been on the Web since 1996, had been relying on a packaged search, navigation, and merchandising system for its online retail branch, Rockler.com. But, simply put, that older software “was not robust enough,” says David Werden, the site’s senior Web developer. The system’s shortcomings left the retailer looking for a way to deliver a more flexible searchand-navigation experience, enabling customers to locate merchandise with fewer clicks. Now, however, that’s an issue that’s been nailed. With Rockler.com’s confidence in the software chipping away, the woodworking specialist evaluated several search-engine offerings ranging from very basic tools to enterprise products before selecting Progress EasyAsk, a site search, navigation, and merchandising platform from application infrastructure software provider Progress Software. (Progress acquired EasyAsk in 2005.) “We were attracted to EasyAsk by the prospect of presenting a more unified interface, whether a customer is drilling down through our category structure or looking at and refining search results,” Werden says. R o c k l e r. c o m l a u n c h e d EasyAsk search and navigation features this past February, and two months later rolled out the EasyAsk analytics functionality to identify popular searches and those that were not returning products, according to Werden. EasyAsk lets Rockler.com provide product search results coupled with related articles and blog entries via EasyAsk’s indexing functionality; highlight sale or overstock merchandise on its “Rockler Outlet” pages; and feature, promote, and categorize “Rockler Exclusive” items on one landing page. As a result of the implementation, Rockler.com has improved its Web site’s browser-to-buyer conversion rate by 30 percent, while search results are returned about five to 10 times faster, according to Werden. “The accuracy of the results is better and the variety of ways to find a product has increased,” he says. —Coreen Bailor Primos Hunting Calls Snares Efficiency Exact Software delivers a warehouse system dog that will hunt I Rockler.com has improved its Web site’s browser-tobuyer conversion rate by 30 percent. n “The Hunter,” an Ogden Nash poem, a fellow “conjures up a quacking noise / to lend allure to his decoys.” Today, such a hunter might well be conjuring with a product from Primos Hunting Calls. But without good warehouse technology, that call might never have made it to his lips—bad news for the hunter; good news for the duck. Primos, based in Flora, Miss., has roughly 135 employees in two locations. In addition to producing instructional videos and an Outdoor Channel television show, the company manufactures hunting calls, hunting apparel, and other accessories that are used with guns and bows, and that are sold at retailers small and large—including Wal-Mart, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Bass Pro Shops, Cabela’s Sporting Goods, and L.L.Bean. Increased sales volume and everchanging customer requirements taxed Primos’ manual warehouse processes. Without the ability to verify the packing and shipping of orders, inefficiency and shipping errors were widespread. When Cliff Manuel became chief information officer in 2006, Primos was already using Macola Progression from Exact Software and had purchased the Exact Warehouse Management System (WMS) for its shipping functionality. For a while, Primos was using the WMS “as a very expensive printer for Wal-Mart labels,” Manuel recalls now; the system’s other features were going to waste. Manuel decided to learn more about WMS and its capabilities, and eventually shifted the warehouse to barcode use. “The order verification that the WMS offered turned out to be a lifesaver,” Manuel says. “With the ability to scan product as it’s packed, WMS has virtually eliminated errors and has contributed to thousands of dollars in cost savings.” The scanner provides a prompt whenever an incorrect item is scanned, or when the company is over- or undershipping, driving preemptive action before larger problems arise. Before, Primos had daily complaint calls from its customers—and no way to verify the accuracy of those complaints. After adding the WMS, Primos saw a dramatic drop in those calls and claims. The company could now verify the exact 43 www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | NOVEMBER 2007 http://Rockler.com http://Rockler.com http://Rockler.com http://Rockler.com http://Rockler.com http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - November 2007

CRM - November 2007 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity Have You Caught It? The Mother of Enterprise Information Market Focus: Technology: The Simple Truth about Complex Manufacturing Q&A: Gianforte Talks CRM Required Reading Predicting Profitability Checking the Pulse of the Contact Center Cast a Narrow Net Modern Times, Modern Methods Primos Hunting Calls Snares Efficiency Nailing It Down Moving in on Mortgage Delinquencies RDS Delivery Delivers on Service Secret of My Success Re:Tooling The Tipping Point Pint of View

CRM - November 2007

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