Toolstream
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Case Study: Toolstream
Company Overview
Toolstream is a B2B tool distributor that supplies thousands of market-leading hand tools, power tools and premium workwear to independent and national retailers around the world.
Based in Yeovil, South Somerset, Toolstream’s mission has been to make business easy by delivering a huge range of quality products faster than anyone else – and at the lowest prices. The company prides itself on working closely with its customers to help their businesses thrive.
Challenges facing Toolstream
Over the past 20 years, the company has evolved and realised it was time its brand image changed too. Toolstream also concluded that customer expectations had changed, with the modern B2B customer wanting experiences that are similar to B2C e-commerce experiences.
Toolstream wanted to bring its e-commerce offering up to speed to continue to give its customers everything they need to make their businesses the best they can be. After migrating its back office systems with the help of Columbus, Toolstream chose to engage with Columbus again to help re-invent its online presence.
Some of the challenges Toolstream were experiencing included:
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Data showed that of the 5000 products on the website, an average customer only engaged with a small subset of the range. Toolstream wanted to make its entire product range fully browsable and searchable to customers
- The lack of data integrations with the old platform hindered Toolstream’s ability to provide customers with accurate, up-to-date information, making it harder for customers to find the products they need
- Toolstream was unable to make even simple content changes on their old platform without developer involvement, which was costing the business time and money
- A significant proportion of website visitors were coming from mobile, however, the old platform wasn’t fully device responsive, limiting the experience Toolstream could provide to customers browsing on different devices
“We started this project with the intention of not only updating and refreshing the look and feel of Toolstream, but also to enhance the customer experience and to make it easier for customers to find the information they need.”
Ruth Richards, Head of B2B Marketing at Toolstream.
Why Toolstream chose the Optimizely platform
Toolstream wanted a platform that could:
- Be flexible and grow with Toolstream as business needs change, to deliver further improvements over time
- Deliver a consumer-like shopping experience that exceeds B2B customer expectations
- Integrate seamlessly with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, which Toolstream recently implemented into its back office with the help of Columbus
- Enhance the customer experience by making it easier for customers to find the information they need
- Improve the company's ability to communicate comprehensive product information to customers by creating a more accessible and easily searchable website
- Enhance the user experience and help Toolstream be the best supplier possible to its customers
The Optimizely platform met all these requirements and more.
Integrations with Zendesk
Toolstream drive continuous improvement by acting on customer feedback. After receiving feedback related to the returns process, Toolstream decided to integrate Zendesk Customer Portal and further extend the functionality upon moving to the Optimizely web platform to help the company deliver best-in-class customer experiences.
Since integrating Zendesk, Toolstream has been able to make enhancements to how the business handles return and contact enquiries. As Toolstream plug in more areas, the company expects to benefit from more business improvements.
“We have recently rebranded and with Columbus’ support we have developed a website which really embodies our brand proposition and puts the customer at the heart of the business. It’s incredibly exciting to think of the opportunities we have to further enhance the site on this platform to take customer experience to the next level.”
Chrisi Wilangowski, Brand Manager at Toolstream.
Implementation journey with Columbus
As is sometimes the case with large-scale digital transformation projects, the implementation process wasn’t without its challenges. Columbus listened, adapted and ensured that the implementation approach would deliver Toolstream’s goals.
“We’re a small team that hadn’t used Optimizely before. Building a platform from scratch was also new to us,” explains Nathan Doel, Technical Project Manager at Toolstream.
“The Columbus team took their time to explain everything to us. Their willingness to share knowledge along with their experience of the Optimizely platform helped us massively.”
Nathan also praises Columbus’ approach to the partner/customer relationship and willingness to ‘challenge’ Toolstream on certain requirements that the business was asking for, to help Toolstream achieve the best results possible.
“For me, that’s always a good thing because we felt like the Columbus team understood what we wanted but they also knew a better way to implement our requirements,” says Nathan.
Toolstream went live with the Optimizely platform in September 2022 to a small subset of customers to gain customer feedback. After receiving plenty of positive feedback, Toolstream fully launched in December 2022 giving huge improvements in several areas including customer journey, on site search, Media Centre and more.
“The Columbus team took their time to explain everything to us. Their willingness to share knowledge along with their experience of the Optimizely platform helped us massively.”
Nathan Doel, Technical Project Manager at Toolstream.
Benefits
Toolstream’s website now offers several features over and above the standard shopping journey a customer would expect. The Optimizely platform continues to support Toolstream’s ambitions of making its customers’ experience with the business as slick as possible.
Toolstream has seen the following benefits:
- Enhanced browsing and searching functionality
The Optimizely platform has provided improved browsing and searching functionality, helping customers find what they’re really looking for more quickly by extending the number of filters and options available throughout their shopping journey.
- Provide a consumer-like shopping experience
B2B customers now have a consumer-like shopping experience, through features like the new detailed display page for every product.
- Fully responsive website
The new website on the Optimizely platform is now fully responsive, meaning customers can browse and place orders at any time, from anywhere, with ease on a desktop, tablet or smartphone. Since launching the new website, Toolstream has seen an increase in mobile usage.
- Making it personal
Today, the granularity of the Optimizely platform allows targeted and personalised offers to specific customer segments, helping the business improve the overall customer experience.
- Different methods of ordering
Customers can now build their basket in several ways. For example, the Bulk Upload feature has been streamlined, allowing customers to load CSV files and build their basket in seconds. Plus, the Express Lane feature allows customers to quickly enter a product code and quantity and add it to their basket from any page on the website.
- Improvement to product information
With the Optimizely platform, Toolstream has been able to simplify and improve data API offerings to its customers, sharing data in near real-time and cutting download times by 50%.
- Full integration of loyalty schemes
Customers can collect points based on factors such as order history and redeem gifts or vouchers depending on the number of points they’ve accrued. This feature has been well received by Toolstream’s customers, ranking in the top five most visited pages on the website.
“The switch away from our previous more rigid CMS to Optimizely means we have complete control of our entire website and all its amazing functionality. Optimizely is a digital marketers dream, with an intuitive CMS that allows flexibility and immediate edits, which is invaluable when thinking on your feet."
Paul Murphy, Digital Marketing Manager at Toolstream.
Columbus as a provider
Nathan says it was “clear to see the love” that the Columbus team had for the Optimizely platform. “They shared their enthusiasm with us and they made all of us at Toolstream fall in love with it as well. Their experience and passion for the platform, along with the commitment shown to us as a client, enabled us to build a great website for our customers and an extremely flexible CMS experience for our in-house content teams too.”
John highlights the value of Columbus’ willingness to find the most impactful ways to achieve the project goals. “That guidance from the Columbus team helped us avoid pitfalls that other businesses would fall victim to,” says John.
Nathan also points out a recent conversation he had with the Columbus team concerning a requirement Toolstream were trying to implement. He reveals the advice from Columbus was to consider a different method of implementation, as if Toolstream required an extension in future, it would be much easier to implement. “It’s those bits of advice that really make the team stand out and make us trust them,” says Nathan.
When asked to describe some of the characteristics of the Columbus team, Nathan replies: “Definitely committed – we felt that not only as a client but to the work as well. It goes back to the love they showed for the project. You could tell the Columbus team wanted the project to be a success as much we did.”
“Throughout the project, the Columbus team has demonstrated how they are much more than just a partner of Toolstream; they are also a trusted advisor on all things digital. We’re excited to continue working alongside Columbus on our digital strategy and take advantage of their knowledge and continuing advice.”
Nathan Doel, Technical Project Manager at Toolstream.
Looking ahead
Columbus offers more to its customers than delivering a project and moving on – they deliver continuous business value via the Evolve phase of a project by optimising the solution to business needs in areas such as SEO (search engine optimisation) and UX (user experience).
Toolstream has been able to benefit from Columbus’ OnTarget Delivery Methodology, which brings structure and predictability to transformational IT projects. Columbus’ approach is to create value as early as possible, demonstrating functionality as the project progresses, ensuring no consideration is left by the wayside. The OnTarget Delivery Methodology has enabled Toolstream to reveal more benefits as the business continues to transform and optimise.
Nathan says Toolstream will enter a monthly cycle of continuous improvement, where the business can utilise the Optimizely platform to gain a deeper understanding of what their customers really want by analysing website data and improving features.
“We’ll be using this information along with feedback from our customers and customer facing sales teams to help us build a roadmap of future improvements,” explains Nathan. “We don’t believe we’ll ever be done with improvements. We don’t want to stand still – we want to continue improving and that’s both in feature functionality and content.”
Toolstream continues to grow its award-winning brand portfolio, many of which have an online presence, and plan to migrate each of these into the Optimizely platform. “We’re really excited about that and Columbus will continue to help us on that journey as well,” says Nathan.