Durham Manufacturing
Industrial Storage / Manufacturing
Customer Portal
Story
Since its inception in Connecticut in 1922, Durham Manufacturing expanded across the United States and abroad, building a loyal and diverse customer base.
As their growth continued, responding to customer inquiries about order and shipment status became time-consuming, raising a need for a solution to this problem.
Durham’s commitment to expansion and aggressive growth presented multiple challenges: (1) increase sales while maintaining a lean environment, (2) meet the unique requirements of distributors and their customers, and (3) provide the best customer experience with on time delivery, the lowest total cost and a broad, deep product offering.
One of Durham’s guiding principles is to create a ‘WOW’ customer experience. Durham believed that the best way to sustain this as the customer base grew would be to provide information a customer typically requests whenever and wherever they need it.
To ensure that they would deliver what their customers wanted, Durham secured input from 6 of their key customers who had the highest call volume. Their direct input helped define the requirements and specifications for a customer portal. It was very clear that customers would benefit from the ability to check the status of their orders and access important shipping information along with other account information online and in real time.
Solution
Durham learned about Nayo Technologies’ experience with IFS Applications™ and chose Nayo to design and implement a customer portal within their ERP system.
With the portal, customers are able to log in to view their order status with direct links to FedEx and UPS tracking services.
The implementation took place over a 12 month period and was performed in 3 phases to realize benefits sooner.
Customer feedback called for an ‘order status’ as their top priority. The initial phase was rolled out in fall 2014 and provided Durham’s customers with the ability to track orders and shipments.
During the second phase, which went live in spring 2015, customers had online access to their account information (payment history, account statements, invoices, etc.).
For the final phase, which took place in fall 2015, a direct order entry system was installed. This provided Durham’s small to mid-sized customers the ability to place orders online, when it was convenient for them vs. having to call in during Durham’s business hours.
Benefits
With the implementation of the customer portal, Durham was able to effectively respond to higher customer call volume, customers were able to go online to check order status and shipment tracking, and Durham resources were freed up to attend to sales calls and address complex customer requests.
These changes translated into sizeable savings by allowing Durham’s current level of resources to support the accelerated growth. Customer satisfaction improved as a result of having access to real time information.
Benefits:
Sustained aggressive growth while maintaining high customer satisfaction.
Customer experience improved and call volumes went down with ability for customers to do order entry, check order status and track shipments.
Durham was able to redeploy resources on sales calls due to lower customer call volumes.
Nayo Difference
Nayo Technologies had the experienced resources and was in a position to successfully implement Durham’s customer portal within agreed upon budget and timelines. Durham is very pleased with Nayo's efforts and is positioned well to meet the challenges associated with their aggressive growth strategy.
Durham complimented Nayo’s efforts and indicated they had a positive experience working with Nayo. Nayo was able to effectively resolve their challenges and successfully meet Durham’s business needs.
The organization and leadership recognized and prioritized the need to maintain customer satisfaction through their growth period. There was strong buy in and commitment at all levels of the organization to implement a customer portal. Resource availability with the necessary experience was critical and the extensive 'due diligence' performed upfront ensured that Durham received the right resources for the implementation from Nayo.
For further Information regarding Nayo Technologies, please contact Sam Durvasula, Director of Marketing at sam@nayotech.com or visit Nayo’s website, www.NayoTech.com.
For further Information regarding Durham manufacturing, please contact Karl Schutz, IT Manager at Karl.Schutz@durhammfg.com or visit Durham’s website, www.durhammfg.com.
“The design and implementation of the customer portal went smoothly and we received very positive feedback from our customers about their online experience,” stated Karl Schutz, I.T. Manager, Durham Manufacturing. “There was great communication between our team and Nayo's team and they were very responsive to our questions and queries. We will engage Nayo for future offerings.”