Gressco

CHALLENGE
How to create a streamlined cart-to-quote process for a complex customer base.

Gressco manufactures and distributes commercial quality children’s furniture for the education, library, and healthcare industries. The company works with a vast network of commercial dealers, manufacturer reps, and architect/design firms to serve these markets.

To help facilitate end-user planning efforts, explains Caroline Kasprzak, Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Gressco partnered with an initial developer to create what they hoped could be a convenient cart-to-quote ecommerce system.

Unfortunately, says Caroline, the effort was plagued with frequent system crashes and a “gigantic list” of code problems.

After two years of struggles, Gressco still hadn’t achieved the kind of customer-focused quote system they had envisioned. That’s when they turned to Earthling Interactive to help accomplish the following:

• Fix the system’s myriad code deficiencies.
• Simplify the customer’s quote request process but still provide valuable customer management features.
• Accommodate a variety of customer categories, pricing structures, and shipping requirements.
• Automate a quote generation process that supported individualized customer care but also spoke to multiple distribution channels.
• Improve customer experience with an easy-to-use system that captured key information for producing an accurate quote.
• Save staff time and administrative costs with an overall more efficient quote generation system.
• Add an additional brand running under a different domain for a related market sector.

SOLUTION
A custom cart-to-quote ecommerce solution that conveniently receives, tracks, and delivers product quotes

Caroline says Gressco is a smaller company, but it’s also quite complicated. “We needed an ecommerce system that spoke differently to, say, an interior designer vs. a dealer vs. an end-user from a school or a doctor’s office.”

That’s why it was so important for the site to work flawlessly, she explains, in terms of conveying the right information to the right audience in the right way. 

Earthling Interactive developers worked closely with Gressco to design and build a Magento-based quote intake and management system that could meet a complex nexus of market demands.

Thanks to the Gressco–Earthling Interactive collaboration, the new system can now do things like: 

• Allow customers to conveniently add products to a quote list (similar to a shopping cart).
• Collect customer comments and questions within the quote request.
• Generate proposals automatically (as a pdf) once a quote has been confirmed with a potential customer.
• Enable account managers to easily adjust product pricing and shipping before generating a final proposal.
• Efficiently convert a proposal to an order.
• Capture an audit trail so that all quote adjustments are archived within an order.
• Provide user-specific pricing for large, specialized accounts.
• Communicate directly with their clients through the administrative interface, thus reducing admin overhead.

RESULTS
A dramatically improved web user experience PLUS an increase in both leads and staff productivity.

According to Caroline, since working with Earthling Interactive to develop a better ecommerce system, Gressco has experienced results like these:

Increase in sales leads. The new ecommerce system has played a key role in sustaining profitability and overall margin levels, says Caroline. 

“And with a much better online experience for customers, leads have certainly gone up.”

Drastic reduction in errors at the quoting stage. Account managers used to spend a lot of time tracking down quote errors, manually adjusting quotes, and tracking down quote results.

Decrease in phone call volume, increase in quality phone contacts. Caroline says the new ecommerce system allows customers to get quotes fast and accurately.

“That’s cut down on our phone volume considerably. And when we do get calls, they’re much more substantive—they’re the ones you really want.”

Increased productivity. Customers now use the website more frequently instead of requesting additional details from an individual staff member. “We actually have gone down in staff who handle calls, and we’re more productive overall because my team can focus on other aspects of their workload,” says Caroline.

Happier customers. That self-reliance has translated to customer satisfaction. “Our customers are happier now,” says Caroline. ”They let us know how much they love the website and how easy it is for them to get what they need.”

A stronger future with a ‘tried and true’ partner. Earthling Interactive continues to provide web and ecommerce support to Gressco.

“There’s great comfort and security in that,” Caroline says. “We trust that Earthling Interactive has our best interests in mind. They have been tried and true to us for seven years, and I have no reason to want to go somewhere else.”