Customer Success Story : Heatons Group
How this stationery and office supplier consolidated its purchasing process whilst providing the very highest levels of customer care.
Established in 1986 as a small, family-run company in Hoylake on the Wirral, supplying stationery and office supplies to local businesses, Heatons Group has unrivalled industry experience. Today with 8 dedicated divisions, 3 branches and a team of over 90 people, they are one of the largest single source business providers in the UK.
With a turnover in excess of £13 million, they help businesses save time and money through consolidated purchasing, underpinned by a desire to provide the very highest levels of customer care.
Here, Tim Clixby, ICT director at Heatons Group, shares his thoughts on the benefits of the ECI Horizon software and how it’s impacted their business.
As one of the longest standing ECI Horizon customers, the software has played a key role in helping us grow over the years. The switch to remote and then hybrid working certainly had an impact on our roadmap, however we have been able to diversify, successfully expand our product range and improve operational efficiencies - aided by Horizon and its capabilities. With the increasing emphasis on online sales, we also implemented HorizonWeb eCommerce solution in 2012.
Customer experience
Providing excellent customer service is at the core of everything that we do. With HorizonWeb, both customers and account handlers are able to access a central database where orders are tracked and key information is stored.
The benefits of this are twofold. Not only can customers log-in to their portal and track the progress of their order, our sales team is no longer getting inundated with telephone calls requesting basic information or order updates.
While we don’t have the capacity of a multi-billion dollar company such as Amazon, we are able to offer a number of features modern customers have grown to expect. For example, we can share a link to their very own portal in every order confirmation email. Transparency is key and we know that people like the option to review their order status and see key details.
Similarly, we know that post-pandemic people’s working habits have changed and this means that the traditional 9-5 business hours no longer apply. Many now work from home, during the evening or over the weekend and being able to access a portal 24/7 is now essential. Heatons' customers can also rest assured that there will be a person at the end of the telephone or available for a video call during business hours, should they need it.
“Previously we were processing around 10% of our orders online. Now, this figure is closer to 60%, meaning that the team has more capacity to focus on value-add services, rather than the administrative burden that comes with taking and processing orders.”
Workwear
Before processing our workwear and embroidery orders via HorizonWeb, we were processing around 10% of our orders online. Now, this figure is closer to 60%, meaning that the team has more capacity to focus on value-add services, rather than the administrative burden that comes with taking and processing orders.
As we have long standing relationships with a number of our workwear clients, we know that they value ease and convenience. HorizonWeb can be configured to automatically display certain product lines when customers visit our website, hopefully preventing them from ordering the wrong brand or style.
For example, we work with a high-end chocolatier who always order the same range of staff aprons. To ensure that they don’t accidentally order the wrong product line, we have configured the system to always display ‘previous orders’. Not only does this increase brand loyalty, it also makes the entire process easier for the customer.
We are also able to generate an artist impression of how the designed garment will look, once again going above and beyond to give customers a bespoke and best possible experience.
As we work with a number of large, high-street businesses, it’s also vital that we are able to support them with large projects such as uniform refreshes, which can be hugely stressful. HorizonWeb, makes bulk orders seamless and keeps admin time to a minimum.
Benefits of switching
Clear visibility for customers to track their orders.
Configurable listings to only show certain product lines to customers.
Seamless bulk ordering, keeping admin time to a minimum.