I was pleased to receive an email recently from Dinsh Guzdar of Rich Products, with a follow-up to my letter to Santa and my “blue chair philosophy.” You may recall that my premise was that too many companies do not adequately take the view of their customer, and that every company should have a blue chair they could sit in when planning products, services, and promotions to properly orient them to their product end-users.
The day the original blog was posted; Dinsh contacted me and promised to provide a link to their new customer-facing website when it was finished. He stated that it was specifically designed to more efficiently communicate with their customers, providing information and tools & techniques in an easily-navigable dynamic website designed from their perspective.
That new website Rich Foodservice went LIVE a couple weeks ago, and I recently spent some time there (with my customer hat on, of course!). Here are some observations:
- The home page is startlingly simple: Segments, Products, Culinary. (Too many sites want to include so much information that navigation --- finding what they want quickly --- is a nightmare. This site makes it simple and easy.)
- Drilling down on Segments gives you a “Challenges and Solutions” tab. Very easy to navigate. (Statistics show that you have about 30 seconds to “engage” a visitor to your website, or they will move on. If what they can’t find what they want within that time, they will move on.)
- Likewise, Culinary Center presents you with Recipes, Menu Ideas, and Training & Troubleshooting tabs.
o Recipe tab can be sorted by day part or product. Nice. (Allows operator to quickly find what they want, or to browse logically.)
o PDF button for the menu ideas pop-up is brilliant. (What good is a recipe or menu suggestion if it can’t easily be printed out for discussion and future reference?)
o Training and troubleshooting is very simple with short answers…just what an operator wants. (Get in…get out.)
Rich Products deserves some congratulations. I am not a fulltime restaurateur, but I have had a close interest in local bar & grill group (owned by my family) for nearly twenty years. I know that our OPS people have often expressed frustration with foodservice manufacturer sites when they are trying to find specific information --- and more important --- ideas, for their operation. “Impossible to navigate…difficult to find what you are looking for…too much data and not enough ideas…” are a few of the things I have heard. The Rich Products site has overcome many of those obstacles in this new site.
I would encourage Rich not to stop with the site rollout, but make an effort to solicit feedback from the foodservice operator community about their new site, listening closely to their suggestions. Comparatively, the Rich Products site shows marked improvement over their previous site, and many other manufacturer sites serving the industry. But it’s not a home run until the CUSTOMER says it is. Besides, your customer doesn’t need a blue chair to think like a customer…listen to what he has to say.
My last suggestion to Dinsh is to “keep it fresh.” If you want to build loyalty to your site --- and ultimately your brand --- you must keep the content on the site updated and fluid. Furthermore, develop some “soft selling” techniques by establishing links out to cooking or culinary sites that might be of interest to their customer base. (Technology today allows these sites to open inside a tab on their site so you don’t lose that customer by linking them away from the Rich Products site.)
There are simply amazing tools available today to foodservice manufacturers to communicate directly with their customers, but few in our industry have moved their sales effort beyond the product-centric data dump. I encourage each of you to drag out your blue chairs and discuss how you can improve your customer touch points. Then try a few things and ask them how you’re doing. It can’t hurt…
“Just because you're good at something doesn't mean the market cares any longer." Seth Godin, marketing expert
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