Audio Interview: Rick D'Ambrosio, Ecommerce Manager at Crucial.com
Crucial.com is a leading computer memory retailer, providing high-quality memory upgrades, and earning top customer service honors for more than a decade. With such an outstanding reputation on the line, it was no small task when the company decided to seek out a new enterprise-level ecommerce solution.
In this interview, Ecommerce Developer's Kevin Patrick Allen speaks with Crucial’s Ecommerce Manager, Rick D’Ambrosio about the process of selecting a new ecommerce platform.
Transcript
Kevin Patrick Allen: For Ecommerce Developer, I'm Kevin Patrick Allen. Crucial is the web's leading retailer of computer memory. Recently, the company has been going through the process of selecting a new ecommerce platform, an important and complicated task. Rick D'Ambrosio is Crucial's Ecommerce Manager and he's been kind enough to let us get a peek at that process at Crucial. First of all, Rick, thank you very much for your time.
Rick D'Ambrosio: Sure, no problem. Glad to be here.
Kevin Patrick Allen: I understand that Crucial recently made a choice to change ecommerce platforms. If you could describe the process that your team went through to select the right vendor for those needs.
Rick D'Ambrosio: Actually, Kevin, we're still kind of going through that process right now, but the process was really a long and arduous one at first to be quite honest with you. We had a lot of issues around just defining the size and the scope of the project, the type of work that needed to be done, the type of features we wanted to add to the website, and really in the end, it kind of boiled down to kind of taking a step back and bringing in the right folks from all the stakeholder groups whether it's finance or marketing or IT and really instead of jumping right into all the things they wanted and all the features and bells and whistles, we have been described really the pain points that they have in there in their day-to-day jobs and really, that was a great stepping off point for us really taking the first step and figuring out the things that we needed to fix with the ecommerce platform that we have today. From then and there, it was really easy for us to dive off and line out the exact requirements based off of those pain points and right now, we're really at the point where we are still interviewing vendors and figuring out exactly which one is going to be the ideal one to fit our needs, but at least at this point we have narrowed the fields tremendously and we are really on the cusp of finding the one that's going to be the one that we need to have.
Kevin Patrick Allen: You talked about speaking with all the different departments, marketing, communications, IT. What was kind of the trigger point though that made you decide to change platforms to begin with? I mean was there one single issue that made you say, "Hey, we need to do something here."?
Rick D'Ambrosio: Actually, there were a couple of things. One of the things that has made Crucial great over the last 12 years is really focusing on that customer experience and over the last 12 years, we've really built our platform from the ground up with blood, sweat and tears of the marketing, IS, and ecommerce groups that we have internally. We've really started to notice over the last two or three years with the advent of new technologies whether it's web 2.0 and user-generated content or some other features that we wanted to add to the website, we're really starting to notice some of the things that our customers wanted and that our customers needed and we just were not able or are not able to give them today. So, really, to answer your question, the key thing really is to improve customer experience. That is number one, right? Number two is to really have an opportunity to have customers help themselves. Not sure if you've gone through the process of finding the right memory upgrade for your system through crucial.com or whatever other means, but it is a daunting process, it can be a daunting process. One of the things we want to be able to do is let customers help themselves, empower them to be able to find that upgrade that they need specifically for their system and really make the process as easy as possible. You know, once you go down that path of finding the right memory upgrade that you need through the tools that you can find at crucial.com, you do get a sense of empowerment and you want to see the process through to the end. Whether it's support or additional content or going out on the Crucial forum, we want to be able to give customers the ability to help themselves. So, those two points are really the two things that we're trying to drive with, with this new re-platforming project.
Kevin Patrick Allen: I wonder just broadly speaking in terms of business philosophy and all, has this helped you as a business person in that you've gone from being the business person working with the customer to being the customer working with the businesses? I mean you're kind of on the other side in many ways by testing out different platforms and kind of seeing what's out there.
Rick D'Ambrosio: Yeah. To be quite honest, I have kicked the tires a lot of times with a lot of different potential platforms, but you know, in the end I think the one thing that I've tried to do and a lot of people that are helping me work on this project is really put myself in the hands of the customer or in the shoes of the customer, I should say, and go through some of those user scenarios and some of those experiences that we hear about everyday whether it's through email or phone or chat or through our forum, you know, what are some of the major issues that they're seeing and as I'm kicking the tires and going through some of these new platforms, really stepping back and saying, "Is this a situation or scenario that can be solved with vendor A or vendor B or vendor C?" and that's really helped us narrow down a lot of the potential vendors that we're looking at today.
Kevin Patrick Allen: I understand that Crucial fulfills memory upgrade orders for some of the leading PC makers. If that's the case, would you explain how some of these potential new platforms would affect those relationships if they would at all?
Rick D'Ambrosio: That's a great question, Kevin. I haven't really taken a step back to consider that, but there are a lot of features and functions that we want to add to the new platform around B2B relationships. One of the things that we really want to address with this new platform is being able to customer the user's experience whether they are a reseller of Crucial product or whether they are a large organization or even just a regular Joe Blow like you and me, but to be able to have the functionality and the flexibility within the platform, to be able to address all those needs across the board. So, whether it is upgrading one system with one memory upgrade or upgrading a thousand, we want to be able to address that.
Kevin Patrick Allen: Just finally, let me throw this out to you. Our listeners are primarily small ecommerce merchants. Anything that you would advise them on or maybe just say and this is something that I've learned that you might want to consider because these issues whether big or small are all issues that business people face and sometimes they seem quite daunting at the time. Anything that you can share with them?
Rick D'Ambrosio: Oh, yeah. You know, I think first and foremost, if anybody out there is going down the path of either considering re-platforming their website or adding new functionality or partnering with a new vendor or whatever, definitely try and put fences around and get your arms around the size and scope of the work. I mean I think that the biggest thing for us at least initially in the process was we wanted to do everything and anything. To be able to fix some of the issues that we have had with crucial.com and the customer experience, that it just been kind of itching at us I guess over the course of the last several years. Things can spiral out of control pretty quickly, especially when you've got a bunch of smart people in the room who really want to do the best that they can with their jobs and really put their best foot forward and trying to make the project a success, but really, defining and identifying what those major pain points are within the business whether they are business goals or whether they are technical issues or user issues or whatever, get them down on paper and then derive your requirements based on those pain points and then above and beyond that, the next part of the exercise is just going through and really prioritizing what's most important and what's least important and then from that point on, as you're bringing in vendors, you are driving the process. You are the one that is identifying which vendor is best for you, identifying which platform and which technology is going to be the best fit because in a lot of cases, these guys are coming in, these vendors are coming in, there may be several that may potentially fit, but you don't want the vendor driving the process because at that point the best salesman wins and it may not be the best fit for your business. So, if I could leave your listeners with one suggestion, it is identify those needs and identify those requirements based on those pain points and you be the one to drive the process.
Kevin Patrick Allen: I guess I should follow up with that too that you're talking about hearing things from customers, customers' needs. How have you heard from customers? I mean has it been something you put out on Twitter? Has it been complaints that have just come in naturally? Are they things you bumped into yourself?
Rick D'Ambrosio: Yeah, that's a great question. One of the things that is really great about our customer base and really about our fan base overall is they are a vocal bunch and through one method or another whether it is through social media or whether it's as simple as picking up the phone and calling us or shooting us an email, they send us suggestions, good, bad or indifferent and we keep a ton of them. That was a major impetus for putting these requirements together for this new platform. I mean really, it was for me a spreadsheet of the good, the bad and the ugly around what customers wanted to see, what customers were asking for, what we were getting kudos for, all the way around and being able to be where customers are whether it is through social media or even on the other end of the phone is definitely where we were able to gather a lot of those comments.
Kevin Patrick Allen: Rick, thank you very much for your time.
Rick D'Ambrosio: You've got it, Kevin.
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