A Couple of Updates From the Customer Experience Front

As most of you who are reading this already know, a little less than two month’s ago we underwent a major upgrade of our ecommerce platform – the one that powers the world’s most popular VoIP store, VoIPSupply.com. Similar to what many other businesses experience when tearing out a piece of business infrastructure and replacing it with something new, things didn’t go 100% according to the plan.

Hey, we never said we were perfect.

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of taking part in an undertaking such as this, it is essentially the equivalent of flipping a dilapidated home (or retail store). In essence, you don’t always know everything that is right, wrong or indifferent about the structure, until, well, you go out and actually get down to it.

Now, I know a lot you liked the old VoIPSupply.com – both customers and business partners alike – but the old VoIPSupply.com was no treat for us to maintain or build new features atop of and thus, in your best interest and ours, we decided to make a change. So, like those adventurous souls on “Flip This House”, we embarked on a six month journey to completely overhaul the existing platform and replace it with a shiny new one. I call it a journey because that is actually what it was. We learned a lot, faced a ton of hurdles and worked tirelessly to deliver a platform that would improve our customer experience and allow us to continue to easily improve website functionality and performance as your needs and demands change. On September 8th, we released the new VoIPSupply.com.

We got a lot of compliments from you (thanks!). We heard some complaints from you (thanks!).

Over last couple of weeks, I am happy to say that we have fixed a number of your complaints. Let’s take a look at we have fixed since September 8th.

1. Website Speed – We have drastically increase page load times and overall site responsiveness. We don’t like slow websites anymore then you do, so we understood your frustrations. I won’t bore you with the details, but today the website is three times as fast as it was a month ago and we aren’t done yet. We are continuing to work on the website’s speed and efficiency today. It will continue to get better.
2. Website Search – Next to speed, your ability to actually find what you want to buy is paramount to your shopping experience. We found a better way to generate search results and with that fix, our site search is better then it was a month ago – and better then it was on the old website.
3. Attribute Based Filtering – We had some bad data in our product database that caused some major issues. We were able to successfully identify the problematic products and thanks to a couple of long nights we successfully fixed the problems. Today, our attribute based filtering is accurate, user friendly and a huge aide in finding the product that best fits your need.

In addition to fixing these problems, I also wanted to point out a couple of other website enhancements that are now present on VoIPSupply.com that you might want to take a look at.

1. Product reviews – First hand experience is always a great way to learn about a product and our product pages are beginning to fill with customer generated reviews, so the next time you interested in a product, simply click on the “Customer Reviews” tab on any product page to see what others just like you have to say about it.
2. Leasing – In today’s economic climate, financing is often the biggest hurdle to you getting into a new VoIP phone system. VoIP Supply now has some fantastic leasing deals on all of the equipment and services we offer – and it can be selected as a payment option during check out.

Finally, I wanted to let you know about a couple of other website enhancements that you will see on the website very shortly that we think we really improve your overall buying experience.

1. Manufacturer Finder – One of the things we “missed” with the new website was the awfully popular “manufacturers drop-down” (and corresponding manufacturers pages) that was once found on the home page. We are currently working on a solution that will return this functionality. Look for it soon.
2. Recommended Accessories – We know that it is often difficult to know which headset goes with which IP Phone or what Gateway works best with that IP PBX. That’s why we are working on displaying the recommended accessories for each product on the product pages itself. This should aide in taking out the guess work and make it easier to get the complete solution you need.
3. Improved Checkout Process – It is pretty good now, but we know we can further streamline the checkout process in order to make it easier and less time consuming for you to place your orders.

Well, that’s it for now.

In parting, I wanted to remind you that all of us here at VoIP Supply know that you have a choice when it comes to where to spend your dollars. We want you to know that we are consistently working on continually improving all aspects of our operations in order to continue to provide the best customer experience in the VoIP industry. We greatly appreciate any and all feedback that you have about any aspect of our operations. Without you, there is no VoIP Supply, so if you ever see something that you think should be done differently, please let us know. We do listen and we do take action, so please don’t be afraid to speak up.

Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to read this and for continuing to do business with VoIP Supply – you are greatly appreciated by all of us here

Ben