Clearview National March 2020 - Issue 220 | Page 64

PROUD SPONSOR OF
GLASS & SEALED UNITS EXTRA
Glass & Sealed Units Extra
ONLINE AND IN PERSON,
PUTTING CUSTOMERS
AT THE CENTRE IS OUR
HIGHEST PRIORITY
Edgetech’s Head of Marketing
Charlotte Mercer explains how
the warm edge pioneers are
embracing technology to deliver
outstanding customer service
THE FUTURE OF
SHOPPING IS ONLINE.
Retail has already been rocked
by the rise of Amazon and its
equivalents, and we’ve seen
household names suffer. Traditional
retailers are more focused than ever
on their online presences as a result.
The scale of the shift has been spectacular.
In 2017 alone, internet-only sales increased by
15.9%. By August 2018, 18.2% of the UK’s
retails sales were made online.
And it’s only going to accelerate in the
decade ahead. Analysts GlobalData expect
online shopping to increase 30% by 2024,
while Retail Economics foresee it at least
doubling in the next ten years.
24/7 FUNCTIONALITY
Fenestration, and construction more
generally, is in many ways a totally different
world. Industry has tended to lag behind retail
and the high street when it comes to embracing
the digital revolution.
And that, combined with a long-term
commitment to making IGU manufacturers’
lives as convenient as possible, is why we’ve
launched Edgetech’s very first e-commerce
platform.
With our quick and intuitive online ordering
system, our customers can now place orders in
minutes, wherever they are, and whenever suits
them best.
Alongside that 24/7 functionality, it lets you
make repeat orders with the click of a button
and track your purchase from initial order to
dispatch and delivery. Quantity-based savings
are applied automatically, and, for larger orders,
you can upload directly from Excel.
Complementing our online ordering system,
68 » M AR 2020 » CL EARVI E W- UK . C O M
we’ve also brought in
electronic invoicing
and electronic delivery
tracking to make dealing
with us as straightforward
as possible – and to help
drastically reduce the amount of
paper we use. As a business, Edgetech is firmly
committed to sustainability – after all Super
Spacer has helped make millions of buildings all
round the world more thermally efficient – and
we’re constantly looking for ways to reduce our
ecological impact.
CUSTOMER FULFILMENT TEAM
With all that, our hope is to make our
customers’ lives just that little bit easier. But
while online is important, e-commerce isn’t
something we’ve implemented in isolation. In
fact, it’s part of a much bigger ongoing shift in
how we operate at Edgetech.
Since 2016, we’ve been committed to putting
the needs of our customers at the centre of
everything we do. We’re examining every aspect
of our business, and making radical changes to
the way we work with one aim in mind – better
meeting the needs of IGU manufacturers.
In the last twelve months, we’ve completely
reorganised our admin and customer-facing
teams to offer even better service.
All departments that are heavily involved
with customers on a day-to-day basis have been
merged to form a new Customer Fulfilment
Team.
Our receipt of goods, customer service,
production specialists and others are now based
in the same office, allowing them to offer a much
more agile, streamlined, joined-up service.
These reforms have had an immediately
positive impact – shortly after they were
implemented, we went two weeks without a
single back order for the first time in more
than twelve months.
BEST-EVER CUSTOMER FEEDBACK
We’re also strongly focused on measuring
customer service – and we’re delighted to say
recent surveys have returned the most positive
results we’ve ever recorded.
We use the Net Promoter Score system for
gauging customer satisfaction. Each quarter,
we select forty customers at random and ask
them how likely they are to recommend us on
a scale of one to ten.
By subtracting the number of Detractors
(people who give us six out of ten or less) from
the number of Promoters (nine out of ten or
above), you’re left with a total Net Promoter
Score, which is used to measure overall
customer satisfaction.
Our NPS scores have been steadily climbing
over the last year – from 47 in July 2018 to 62
in November 2018 (a score of 50 is regarded
as excellent).
In Q1 of last year, however, the company
achieved 94 – the best result in Edgetech’s
history, and probably one of the best NPS
scores ever recorded!
That tells us we’re going in the right
direction – but we’re not complacent. Whether
it’s online or in person, we’ll continue striving
to put customers at the centre until we can say
with confidence that we’re the most customer-
focused business in our industry.
www.edgetechig.co.uk