Supplyant

Our friends over at Bath Empire are growing fast and needed to recruit a bunch of new guys for the warehouse to cope with demand. Improving customer conversion rates  is big priority as part of the work we do with them, but sometimes your website can have interesting effects in other ways.

What happened when they went recruiting proved to be a great example of  the content on the website having a direct effect on the quality of staff they recruited.

The Bath Empire meet the team page:

10 people were brought in for interviews for a job in the warehouse. I was amazed to find out that when it came to interview day 7 of the potential candidates turned up in white shirts and blue ties.

It was fantastic to see that the recruits took the time to look at the site and look for an affinity with the existing team.

Simply, its proof that your websites quality has a direct effect on more than just sales.

So what next?

Take the time to considered how you can improve the quality of your team page. Im off to fill the Supplyant team page with bikini clad lovelies and see what happens at our next set of interviews

From October 2010, you will be able to change the delivery details of a particular shipment, (before it has been delivered), quickly and securely, using the DPD website. You will be able to make the changes as you receive them, online and without the need to call or email us and you’ll be able to make the changes until 19:00

The procedure is extremely simple: you log on, select track it and then choose the relevant option (see details below) and make the change. It really couldn’t be easier! Here’s an at-a-glance guide to the changes you can now make before a parcel has been delivered. The only requirement is that the parcel hasn’t been delivered.

We think this is a move in the right direction, and DPD seem to be the most innovative delivery partner at the moment, but does this mean more issues? Who do you use for a carrier right now and what do you find the biggest delivery issues?

One of Supplyant’s key e-commerce clients needed a way to manage over sixty UK warehouses from one system. They were relying on their suppliers to dispatch the goods to their customers as well as relying on them to provide customer service information. This method provided no visibility nor tracking facilities. Furthermore, they incurred high carriage charges because of the low volumes being dispatched from each supplier.

Supplyant worked with MetaPack to create a system that allowed individual warehouses for each of their suppliers and customers incorporating the relevant rates, services and allocation criteria.

Director, Nick Morton explains the benefits, “now that we have MetaPack in place we’re able to pass on an average carrier cost reduction of 28% and reduce account setup to pickup time to under 48 hours. This has proved a big hit with small and large businesses alike.”

Now when processing a ‘third party collection’ (where the consignor organises the collection from a remote address for either a return delivery or delivery to another address through MetaPack, all Supplyant or their customers have to do is enter the consignment details as normal, the supplier then logs into their warehouse and prints the label.

The goods are dispatched directly from the supplier with Supplyant or their customers having full visibility and tracking of each delivery.

“MetaPack has automated our dispatch process, reduced the amount of administration involved and enhanced our customer service by giving us the knowledge of where our parcel is at any given time. We encourage all of our suppliers and customers to use MetaPack, we consider ourselves ambassadors for the system. People generally concentrate on cost savings on the bottom line, and forget the cost of administration and automation. The savings our clients have made have been incredible” adds Nick.

You can read the full case study on the MetaPack site here

For more information on how MetaPack can help organise your delivery systems watch this video with Patrick Wall, CEO being interviewed by Internet Retailing Magazine.

Talk to us about integrating the MetaPack system into your business today.

When I am lucky enough to get a client who is really clear about customers and what they can do for them it really helps a project along.

Strachan and Windram have just released there new e-promo website and its been designed with a very simple goal in mind; “Get wealthy people to call us”.

Wealth Management is an incredibly broad area of business but what was really clear that the best way they could grow was to go after customers that could help the best.

I’ll tell you the methods they used to accomplish this in the following article.

Step 1 – Clearly identifying the audience

They had some very clear groups of people they wanted to target; A1 customers who they could always provide maximum benefit to. They have great experience working with Entrepreneurs and Sports Pro’s and had some great products for Company Directors on making much much more from existing pensions.

Step 2 – Its about you

The copy is completely customer focused. Its clear from the first sentence that they are offering services that will help you make the most of what you have, rather than telling customers how great they are. Each of the key groups identified as important are given there own bespoke content.

Step 3 – Building Trust

The site is littered with symbols of trust, including industry logos and case studies from existing clients.

Step 4 – The call to action

Its tough selling high value intangible products like investments over the Internet. A key strategy was to show the “Life Plan” service as  a boxed product. This simple product became the focus of the call to action which was clearly by phone.

Step 5 – Continual marketing

New articles are produced and published by the Strachan Windram team. Each time an article or case study is produced it is emailed to the entire Strachan Windram customer base automatically. Because the articles are tightly targeted they rank very well in search engines. Regular coaching of the team in writing good articles ensures the standard remains high.

Want to find out how you can get your site working hard?

Contact us today for a free consultation.

Hairdressers love to talk and when we got the chance to work with Northampton’s best hairdressing group it seemed like a perfect opportunity to use the Internet to let  the clients talk back to them.

We’ve worked hard to bring the same fantastic experience you get at the top London salons to Northampton. Our mission is to give styles that make you feel amazing by listening closely to our customers. Because of this we wanted to be sure that our website had those same values.

• Take design elements from the best of the London salons, using modern vibrant colours
• Talk to the customers regularly, building the community of salon fans.
• Allow the customers to talk to us however they wanted, phone, email, facebook and twitter
• Inspire customers with celebrity styles, giving them the confidence to try something new
• Offer awesome products with real reviews from the stylist’s that use them.

George Major, Managing Director

I’d like to give a great big congratulations to George, Sam and the team of stylists for there help in  launching the all new www.thecuttingrooms.co.uk site. As ever getting the website launched is the first part of the journey. The marketing plan is now in place and the team at the Cutting Rooms are ready to:

• Add regular fresh content to the site
• Adding more ideas for styles
• Building the readership
• Using the site to talk to the customers

Visit the site and sign up to the newsletter for a chance to win a free haircut.

I’m a lucky man! I’m blessed with fantastic clients who all want to use there websites as more than just a plain old business card. I would like to thank Wendy at Shires Cookery School for being a great client and take  pleasure in announcing the launch of Shires Cookery School.

Please have a look at the site.  I’d love to hear you opinions and Shires would love to see you at one of their fantastic courses.

Wendy at Shires Cookery School organises cookery classes that are:

• Reasonably priced
• With great expert chefs
• At locations that are never too far away

The key objectives for this project were:

• Providing detailed information on the courses to maximise bookings
• Providing a simple way of booking and paying for the courses.
• Using the platform to generate a subscriber base.
• Speaking to customers regularly by email / twitter / facebook / rss
• Clearly defining the Shires Cookery School look and feel.

You can try the site now at www.shirescookeryschool.com
You can book up for fantastic fathers day  Sizzling Sausages course
or let us  know what you think of the site

The Modified Nationals show held in Peterborough is one of the top dates on the modified car calendar. A great opportunity for like minded petrol heads to have a great weekend of cars, partying and girls. Our mission was to create a site that not only showcased all the features of the show but to give it a real sense of excitement.

With the target audience we wanted to be sure of:

• Having the ability to comment on any of the posts
• Allowing the Modified Nationals team to update the site as things changed
• Enhancing the modified nationals reputation

Check out the site over and http://www.modifiednationals.co.uk and give us your thoughts.

See you there

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Its a well know fact that accountants are BORING, so when the opportunity came up to work on the website of some accountants who wernt boring came up we relished the challenge.

Looking at the dull, dull, dull competition we chose to launch a vibrant site, that emphasised the skills of the people involved.

Check it out now at fabaccounts.com

In keeping with there own instore promises Northampton Reptile Centre have made the centre piece of there new site the commitment to ethically produced reptile products.

As an added commitment they also give 1% of there turnover to good causes at the Galapogas Trust and Earthwatch.

The latest supplyant site at BathEmpire.com has just gone live. Retailing designer taps and showers in an enourmously competitive market.

What attracted us to the project is there 3 key customer promises.

1. Never be beaten on price
2. Always provide next day delivery
3. Always provide free delivery

The site brought several challanges:

1. Bringing a warm cosy look
2. Handling multiple product images in a good way
3. Enabling a countdown times to push the next day delivery

Let us know your thoughts.