Colmec

Why Colmec Chose Gung

We had been talking for quite some time about starting up an e-commerce site for our retailers. And when we decide to do something at Colmec, we want to do it well. Once we were ready to start the project, we looked at a handful of different suppliers, but we chose Gung because of its ability interact directly with our Jeeves ERP system. Much of the information we have about our products, such as pattern depth, weight, and dimensions, is housed in Jeeves, so we saw that it was going to be easy to display that data in our new web store.

Enhancing the Customer Experience

Because our salespeople need to be able to easily access their customers and help them with placing orders, the ability to view order history and invoices was important to us. With Gung in place, our sales team was able to work in the same interface as both our customers and our retailers, so we had the benefit of them taking on a support function when they needed help or had a question. It became easy for them to be able to guide their people through the different features available to them in the web shop.

Function Before Beauty

As we rolled out Gung, our focus was on delivering an easy-to-use, clear, and functional site—not something flashy. We simply wanted it support customers as if they were placing a live call to our inside sales department—with the key difference being that they would not have to be limited by standard office hours. We knew Gung could help us deliver 24/7 availability and service to our customers. One of the most important parts of the customer experience was ensuring that when a person logs in, he would see the right prices, discounts, and payment terms right away, as well as when he could expect a delivery.

Pivoting During the Pandemic

We managed to have our e-commerce site live for about one year before we entered the COVID pandemic, and everything related to our delivery processes was thrown overboard. Fortunately, we have our own production of retreads here in Norrköping, but we are also a supplier of newly-produced tires for major manufacturers around the world. Some tire shops were locked in on specific designs and brands, and we were out of some of the items that the customers were requesting. The situation was out of our control, but the beauty of it all was that our web shop allowed them to search for equivalent products in a simple way. They could compare images, functions, and prices in order to find the product that would solve their needs. We would have had a much harder time responding to this challenge had we not implemented Gung.

Iterative Web Shop Improvements

After about a year and a half, we started sketching new functions we wanted in our web shop. We had a long list of features for both our customers and our retailers—features we knew would improve our digital offering and create a better overall experience.

After all, we work with both tires and rims and have our own assembly department, so it was logical for us that customers would also be able to order complete wheels. Dubbing is also done here at our facilities in Norrköping, so of course, we want to include that service as well.

In addition, our sellers wanted an easy way to report their activities with the customers. They wanted a fast and easy way to put different statuses on orders, such as started or completed, without having to log into multiple systems. When we rolled these features out, our sellers ended up with simpler, real-time statistics that helped them better track of their personal figures and achievements.

And last but not least, after we had met our functional goals, we started upgrading our web design to be more aligned with our brand identity.

It's been a very positive experience to be able to roll out features in Gung as we've found new needs. So often you can get boxed into a solution and become stuck with the features that were there initially.