Stannah bring home digital innovation award
In November 2020, in a first for the stairlift industry, Stannah launched an e-commerce site that gave customers the option to purchase a stairlift direct online. This initiative was led by Sam Stannah, with support from the Strategic Projects Team, a team from the UK S&I business and agency partner, Zone Digital.
Traditionally stairlift sales have been made offline through in-person visits. But Stannah’s new approach was validated almost immediately. Within 82 minutes they had secured their first sale and marked the successful introduction of a valuable alternative sales channel.
Customers who purchased via this route overwhelmingly chose an upholstery from the company’s extensive new range (71%) and more importantly, a massive 79% chose to upgrade to the deluxe package.
The commercial success of the e-commerce site has now been recognised by the Marketing Society, one of the leading marketing industry bodies, with The Marketing Society 2021 Award for Enhancing Customer Experience.
Alex Wilson, Design Manager – Customer Digital Transformation, Gaynor Childs, Market Insights Manager and Kirsty Taylor, Head of Customer Acquisition went up to London for the award ceremony where despite stiff competition from heavyweight brands Odeon Cinemas (working with Ogilvy) and Heinz (working with BBH), the Stannah team came away with the prize.
Sam Stannah, who heads up the Strategic Projects Team, the first of the 6th generation of the Stannah family to join the business, commented, “We are beyond thrilled with the success of our digital platform in the UK that offered a reassuring and easy digital experience for people when they couldn’t meet with the Stannah team face-to-face. We have now given our customers more choice and accessibility in how they purchase and are delighted to have had our work recognised by the Marketing Society.”
Roy Capon, CEO at Zone, said: “Our original challenge was to help Stannah supplement its traditional sales process with a direct, customer-centric digital journey that was easy, enjoyable and empowering for customers to use, offering enough technical information to provide an accurate quote but also keeping humanity and reassurance at its core. In just twelve weeks we designed, built and launched the platform, transforming the stairlift purchase journey from weeks to just 20 minutes.”