Keep Those Comments Coming

Thursday July 22, 2010 | Filed under:

Being accountable to customers and responding to their concerns and suggestions is key to any business, which is why I encourage anyone reading this blog to comment on a post or email me.

In the year or so it took to develop our revolutionary new ESP Web platform, for instance, we reviewed hundreds of your suggestions to make sure we delivered a product that would help you improve your business. Recently, we announced even more enhancements to ESP – and we’re not done yet.

The ESP Web platform now features faster searches along with more than 20 other enhancements to help suppliers and distributors, including:

  • An advanced product search integrated into its revolutionary, intelligent search engine
  • The ability to add products to the shopping cart directly from customer presentations
  • Preferred pricing on numerous screens, including initial product-search results
  • Even more speed, so searches are faster than ever.
Sam Knox, vice president of Clever Advantage Inc., emailed us with an enthusiastic endorsement that we included in a recent press release, which you can read by clicking here. In short, Sam called the advanced search “awesome.” Thanks, Sam!

This week, I also responded to an email from a less than enthusiastic reader who saw our press release on the ASI Show in Chicago, where we attracted over 4,100 distributors. In that release, we mentioned the team at Harry & David (asi/59710), the well-known consumer brand that selected ASI Chicago to make its inaugural appearance as an industry supplier. 

The reader was unhappy we promoted a supplier that sells through a direct retail channel, and I’d like to share my response, below:

“Up to you on picking suppliers, but I wanted to let you know that we have worked carefully with Harry & David and they really understand the concerns you have.  For instance, they have created specific products for our industry – including a partnership with Leed’s for specific bundling and packaging – that aren’t being offered direct.  So your customers and prospects can’t do a direct compare. And they’ve also been thoughtful about making the ‘suggested retail’ for distributors no lower than comparable direct pricing, while providing 30 percent+ margins to distributors.

As I said, I don’t mean to defend particularly, but they really are being thoughtful and methodical and I didn’t think it fair not to let you know.”

If you have any more suggestions on our releases, ESP or anything else, please post a comment or email me here and I’ll respond as best I can. I’m also on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.