Pedders Suspension and Comma Consulting - Case Study - Digital Laggard to Digital Leader

Pedders Case Study – From Digital Laggard to Leader

Below is a concise summary of how Comma Consulting worked with the Pedders business to evolve them from a Digital Laggard to a Digital Leader in one Digital/eCommerce project.

Company Situation:

Pedders is a family business that has flourished due to its strong physical footprint and passion for innovation. It offers after-market vehicle parts and technical systems to enhance vehicle performance in suspension, braking, and steering.

Pedders has gone so far as to be the world leader in producing content and "calculator systems" to define the weights of vehicles to help people know if they need a more robust solution.

Pedders Pain Point:

While the business strives for innovation in automotive aftermarket parts (including suspension kits), its focus on its Digital/eCommerce channel could have been stronger and became an afterthought.

The Pedders site provided confusing journeys in two primary ways...

1. It was hard for people to book services online.
2. It was confusing for people trying to engage with the spare parts catalogue.

As a result, the Head Office and Store Network became inundated with consumer questions. It reached the point where employees needed help to keep up with the volume of queries.

The Solution:

Pedders approached Greg Randall from Comma Consulting to help unpack all the issues with the current online channel and assist in architecting Pedders digital future.

The following steps were followed to achieve this business need.

Step 1 - Strategic Planning:

This planning process understood Pedders' business-wide strategies and then precisely defined what the future state of Digital/eCommerce needed to look and behave like to support, enable and enhance these strategies.

This narrative speaks in "business language", so the Executive team has absolute clarity on what this channel needs to evolve to. This both enlightens the Exec Team and empowers them with the knowledge they never had previously.

It also gave them confidence in the next round of decision-making and investment.

This process also explained what the "Low Hanging Fruit" looks like.

Step 2 - Approving the "Low Hanging Fruit":

Once Pedders understood what the future state of the Digital/eCommerce channel needs to look like AND the "Low Hanging Fruit", it became simple to agree and define a Phase 1 Project Scope for change.

The "Low Hanging Fruit" is the short-term change that will achieve the maximum business impact.

The "Low Hanging Fruit" recommendations from Greg came from business data, market data, and his 25 years experience in creating high-performing digital channels.

Step 3 - Customer Experience Design and Project Execution:

Greg Randall lead the "Customer Experience Design" planning process. Wireframes are built to show the flow and step-by-step details of every journey for customers who want to make a service booking OR engage with the Pedders Parts Catalogue.

Once this level of planning was completed, the rest of the project became less complex to manage. Pedders had the "Experience Bible" as the continuous reference point.

This became Pedders "North Star" for success.

Greg Randall became the "Quality Police" for all Vendor conduct to ensure activities supported Pedders "North Star".

The Results:

Two of the low-hanging fruit objectives were to…

1. Improve the quality of service bookings to the Pedders store network
2. Increase the volume of service bookings to the Peddres the store network

Data has now been verified, proving the new online channel consistently produces 100% growth in these online bookings.

Click here to look at the new version of the Pedders Suspension site.

There are a few points to note about this 100% growth metric…

#1. It has come from an existing high base of performance.

#2. The level of marketing spend has not changed.

#2. The new booking journeys ask people for more information to complete the online booking. This is done to improve the booking quality for the Store Network. However, asking for more details typically produces a higher rate of bailouts. As a result of the planning process (mentioned above) bailouts are not happening.

Testimonial:

Greg Randall has given us a pathway to success

Greg is an absolute breath of fresh air and really on point on the challenges around our business in the digital space. It is very rare to find such a down-to-earth person that talks the facts and backs up those facts with data.

He is so knowledgeable in the space of digital and in the space of eCommerce.

Thanks to Greg, we now have a pathway to success.

Adam
Senior Executive - Brand and Marketing Pedders Suspension