Case Study: Evergreen Enterprises

Advanced EMedia Boosts Productivity at Evergreen Enterprises

Challenge:

• Needed to replace an outdated platform
• Wanted to automate several key business processes
• Wanted to improve the online customer experience

Solution:

• Contacted WebJaguar

Results:

• Online orders handled more efficiently
• Improved communication between sales reps and customers
• A rapidly-growing online customer base

"After launching the site, we first reaped a 200%+ increase in web orders." -- Brianne Keating Forst

It's a reality of business that yesterday's technological breakthroughs sometimes become tomorrow's outdated solutions, usually faster than the company budget can manage.

So when Evergreen Enterprises, Inc., a world leader in the wholesale distribution of home furnishings, home and garden décor and fashion accessories, decided to replace their severely limited platform, they wanted a new solution that would not only improve upon their previous technology, but would also meet their needs for years to come.

Through its myEvergreenonline website, the company helps hundreds of leading vendors market and sell their products to retail establishments worldwide. "The platform we had been on previously did not allow us to take control of the marketing initiatives," said the company's Director of eCommerce, Brianne Keating Forst. "It was a full-service platform where the host managed everything and it didn't allow us to be as effective and reactive as we needed to be."

"They wanted to easily sell online and easily automate many of their processes," said Bachir Kassir, president of Advanced EMedia. "And most importantly they wanted integration with their internal accounting package."

These needs were satisfied with the WebJaguar platform, which automated the online order process and the customer's ability to see their web-placed orders, as well as orders placed on their internal accounting.

"The WebJaguar platform appealed to us because of its out-of-box capabilities that were fully customizable by our team," Forst explained. "It allowed us to completely manage the design and the layout of the site with our own skills. We were also able to work closely with the Advanced EMedia team and launch a significant number of custom builds for our specific business needs."

These custom builds included the ability for the company's sales reps to manage their customers, and even place orders on behalf of those customers. "This feature is essential to their business model," Kassir said. With WebJaguar, when customers log in they see a greeting from their sales rep, and reps are automatically notified when a new customer from their assigned territory signs up on the website.

"The WebJaguar platform allowed us to sell and treat our customers as a consumer, not just a business," Forst said. "We have been able to increase efficiencies with our internal departments, such as Customer Service and Accounting, by being able to provide tools to our customers online.

"It allows us to have a unique, customized and segmented marketing approach in communicating with our customers," Forst continued. "We have been able to develop business specific tools online to more tightly integrate the online customer experience with their offline relationship."

After the WebJaguar platform was implemented, it didn't take long for Evergreen Enterprises to realize the advantages of being able to manage the entire site design and product inventory, and imbed the company's business-specific logic into the functionality of the site.

"After launching the site, we first reaped a 200%+ increase in web orders," Forst said. "We have also been able to successfully grow our online customer base, bringing in 20- 40 new customers each day."