Website redesign puts customer service on the front burner


From September 2007

By Karen M. Kroll

Kitchen and cooking gear purveyor Chefs Catalog retooled its website last year, making it both elegant and easy to use. To accomplish the task, it partnered with Fluid, a San Francisco-based provider of online retail solutions.

The previous design was “decent,” says Tim Littleton, senior vice president of marketing for Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Chefs Catalog. But with web sales now running about even with catalog sales, having a topnotch e-commerce site was critical.

The deciding factor in opting to work with Fluid, Littleton says, was the firm’s focus on the customer experience, rather than just the design of the site. While the team at Chefs wanted the website to look good, it was primarily concerned that customers find it easy and enjoyable to use.

Great websites encompass both good design and functionality, and appeal to visitors coming from a variety of places, says Andrew Sorotnik, chief experience officer for Fluid. Some, of course, know Chefs from its catalog: for the most part, these shoppers are familiar with the company and know what they want. Others land at the site via an online search.

They probably know what they want, but may not be familiar with Chefs.

Still others come from affiliate sites. These shoppers tend to be more value-conscious, and zero in on value-priced or clearance merchandise. If visitors coming from affiliates or online searches can be persuaded to make their first purchases, they’re more likely to become longer-term customers, Littleton says.

Variety of appeal
Chefs Catalog focuses on the actual activities of cooking, such as braising, sautéing and baking. In that sense it compares with sites dedicated to entertaining, decorating and other related interests. As a result, Chefs’ site is designed to be accessible to anyone interested in cooking, with a beautifully simple layout based on sophisticated technology.

The homepage typically features a photograph that relates to cooking, but is not product-specific. (In late July, for instance, the site contained a mouth-watering photo of a Tuscan roast pork loin.)

One of the first enhancements to the site was the introduction of “shoppable” photos: Simply by moving their cursors over a picture, shoppers are able to uncover more information on the featured products or recipe. In the case of the pork loin, moving the cursor over the picture activated the photo of the roasting pan. Shoppers can zoom in on specific areas of the photograph, gaining, for instance, a better look at the texture of the hammered copper pan. “Some customers really want to see greater detail,” Littleton says. “Zoom allows a high-quality image.”
 
Shoppers can get an in-depth look and detailed information on the product, and even add it to their shopping carts, without ever leaving the homepage because applied technology is such that the site replicates the experience customers are likely to have in a bricks-and-mortar store.

The site also offers viewers the opportunity to see some products from up to eight different angles. Where appropriate, they also can change the color of the item they’re viewing.

Another enhancement was the introduction of content-based marketing. Chefs’ customers are interested in everything related to cooking, from notable chefs to unique ingredients, so the teams at Chefs and Fluid worked together to create an online recipe section. Recipes can be searched by main ingredient, course, type of cuisine or the chef who created the dish.

Once a customer opens a recipe, he or she can click on various ingredients, such as olive oil, to see several recommended types of olive oil. This information is available from within the recipe, so that the customer doesn’t have to move around within the site.

“Interactive merchandising needs to break out of the product detail page and exist throughout the site,” Sorotnik says.

In addition, these features are made available through what’s known as “client-side” technology. The zoom-in capabilities and 360-degree shots are downloaded into the user’s browser, so that her computer doesn’t have to go back to Chefs’ server to repeatedly request information. That speeds response time and keeps traffic moving – even during peak times, such as the day after Thanksgiving.

While not visible to users, the site’s administrative features also are critical to its effective operation. Chefs’ IT employees can update product information and displays by logging into the administration section of the site and making the appropriate changes.

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