The Proposal
DMF Wakefield is an online platform that provides and sells over 5000 consumables for a range of workshop services. The company required an eCommerce platform to be developed. It needed a customer portal for their service department, an eCommerce facility for their body shop consumable arm and a quote system for their garage equipment and compressor business.
The Process
The workshop installation section of the business required a portal. This portal was to move their entire maintenance and calibration services onto a digital network, allowing engineers and customers to have all their documentation for all workshop equipment online. This meant all paper-based documentation needed to be created into a fillable form and then converted into a PDF format.
As each customer also needed their documentation placed automatically into their panel, Castle needed to create a traceable path from when the engineer filled in the form to it arriving into DMF’s unique portal. DMF also stipulated that all customers needed to physically sign their documentation, so it would verify the engineer’s work, which required the team to create a ‘digital signature’ facility.
Castle was able to create an online form that had pre-assigned criteria to know whether you were an existing or new client, we then produced a module that located customers based on address and ID. This allowed us to find the client, to locate their portal and then connect it to the submit button at the end of each form. Once all the forms were built, we created a module for digital ‘wet’ signatures.
With the form process in place, we had to create an admin and client portal for every customer and staff member. The portal enabled staff to view all historical data such as engineer notes, calibration documents and all signed forms. The customer could search via date and also add their own documentation in order to assist the engineer in any way.
The enormous eCommerce solution that Castle designed consisted of high-level Magento features, with an advanced filtration module included, as there were over 5000 products DMF wished to include on the site.
The Results
Castle added value by promoting DMF’s business online. National sales had now become a more realistic proposition with the addition of an eCommerce store, and the creation of a portal that allowed engineers and sales reps to deliver an improved service gave rise to increased customer retention as well as offering upselling opportunities to increase turnover and profit revenue. With 5000 of their stocked parts becoming available to buy online, this has generated a 25% increase in new revenue and a 30% increase in repeat custom.
DMF Wakefield now feels as if its service can compete successfully with other major sector competitors.