Unless you are a cook, chef or server, you probably have no need to step through those swinging doors into the kitchen of your favorite restaurant. What goes on behind those doors is a thriving industry business, a world away from delicately folded napkins and artful plating. In the U.S., there are more than 1 million kitchens spanning independents, fast food chains, schools, hotels and hospitals, all providing foodservice to their customers.
With years of success under their belt in this always bustling environment, it was easy to discount the players in the kitchen as part of an old, established industrial culture, set in its ways, and comfortably doing business old-school. That is how Heritage Parts had been operating as well until a new leadership team listened to its customers and realized they needed to make a change.
Heritage Parts provides replacement parts for commercial and institutional kitchen equipment. Their primary customer is the service tech who repairs and maintains the equipment. As a thriving B2B operation, they took pride in providing sterling customer service and exceptional telephone support, ensuring the techs in the kitchens were looked after every step of the way. Based on the exceptional customer service Heritage was known for in the industry, that relationship experience was a key driver in the early resistance to moving to e-commerce. How could the company continue to leverage its tribal knowledge and one-on-one relationships with its customers through an electronic platform?
Heritages customers, the service techs, were starting to turn to digital online catalogs and resources, a technology that the previous management at Heritage had chosen to resist, believing that an e-commerce presence would dilute the purity of their customer relationships. The techs needed price and part information right away, and as they became more mobile, they turned to alternate sources, including Heritages primary competitors.
When the new management team stepped in at Heritage, they did their due diligence and made data-based decisions grounded specifically in what their customers were telling them they needed.
Heritage realized that the B2C trend to implement omni-channel strategies was really starting to get traction in the foodservice industry as well and Heritage Parts began to lead the charge. Known for its superior customer service and fast delivery, Heritage understood that all of its channels needed to work together to create a seamless experience for the customer, while protecting the integrity of its product and its brand.
Heritage began working with SAP Hybris to set up a full, new e-commerce suite while guarding the customer service component that was so important to its customers. Heritage quickly started to see significant uptake, first representing 1 percent of total sales, and then quickly doubling to 2 percent. Although such percentages may seem small at the outset, Heritage always retained the attitude that every sale had value. Consequently, the doubling and quadrupling of e-commerce sales illustrated a significant and growing trend. The move to e-commerce also opened up a new opportunity for Heritage to seek out new customers as well.
The assumption by the previous Heritage management team that the newer online community and the traditional telephone catalog community were separate groups, proved false. In fact, Heritage discovered that 50 percent to 60 percent of the online customers had shopped for the part online either from the Heritage site or a competitors site, then called in the order to benefit from the legendary personal service that had always been the Heritage hallmark.Heritage recognized its existing customers needs for an omni-channel solution, and delivered one.
B2B companies are rapidly moving toward services and business outcomes, just like their counterparts in B2C.
Although Heritages dedication to personal attention continues to succeed with customers, the fact remains that service techs, corporate buyers and anyone involved in the B2B foodservice industry also have personal lives part of which includes the experience of shopping and paying for items within the B2C online marketplace. While its products and services may not have changed for Heritage, the path to purchase has been evolving rapidly.
Although consumers are savvy B2C shoppers online, there are still buying decisions within the foodservice industry that represents over 800 manufacturers and hundreds of thousands of parts which can become a complicated purchase. It became imperative that Heritage offer an omni-channel solution to meet all of its customers needs and own every touchpoint a customer has within its organizationand they were able to beat their competition to market with a true omni-channel solution.
People are strongly influenced by their own retail buying experiences. They see the degree to which customized, high-touch service is offered seamlessly across commerce channels, and at all points along the journey.
The shift is moving into the B2B industrial marketplace. A 2015 Forrester report highlights the prime influences that have forced a change in behavior among B2B buyers, one of which is the Amazon-style B2C experience, with its real-time interaction, extensive price/inventory transparency, and robust guided selling.This applies just as much to buying a heating element for a commercial stove as it does to ordering cosmetics or shoes.
The shift toward omni-channel e-commerce is not simply an act of following the bouncing ball of customer demand. There is also a great deal of innovative strategy available for capture. For instance in B2C, customers are using techniques such as showrooming visiting a store to examine a product before buying it online at a lower price, and webrooming researching products online before buying in a store as standard practices for shopping and decision-making. Smart suppliers can pounce upon these techniques rather than curse their existence. They can be highly convenient and cost-effective approaches to attract new customers.
This is a more customer-centric age than ever. Each customer remains the only customer. The relationship and level of care can remain as high now as it was in the days of telephones and printed catalogs even higher, with data and omni-channel experience providing a wider, more immediate and satisfying platform.
The story of Heritage Parts is one of a timely evolution that blends the best of its history with the best of commerce technology.
