Features Make The Website

While the in-person demonstration and sales pitch still have an important place in the jan/san industry, the tastes of many customers have changed. Many, especially the younger generations, favor fast and convenient contact to face-to-face interaction.

The jan/san distributors with an e-commerce website find that some customers prefer to ask questions and place orders through the live chat system they’ve placed on their website. 

“Chat on your website is everything,” says Gosson.

The term “live” doesn’t have to be literal. If an inquiry comes in at 11 p.m., most chats are operated so that an employee can follow up during business hours. When the employees who have access to the chat — Gosson suggests that might be a customer service representative and supervisors — see the message, they can put the customer in touch with the technical support or sale representative who can answer his or her question.

Bruno and Powers — also fans of the online customer chat — say a text message system can come in handy. One way to streamline these chat and text requests is with an app developed for a phone or tablet. Hill & Markes is beta testing a mobile app so that it can take advantage of this unexplored opportunity. 

“The mobile app I think its going to be important for us on the foodservice side and janitorial side,” says Bruno. 

Bruno finds that laborers who work remotely across buildings, such as janitors and hospital workers, like to place their orders with a phone or tablet. With an app in place, that worker could make the order without taking his or her eye off their cart. Then after a moment or two, it’s on to the next cleaning task.

There are a few easy things jan/san distributors can do to a website to improve the customer’s experience. For one, placing the company’s contact information at an easy-to-find location helps save the customer time and gives the website more legitimacy. Providing access to a map to the business, the address, phone number and email lets the visitor know they’re dealing with a U.S. business who they can easily be put in touch with. 

Powers suggests jan/san distributors place a good amount of landing pages with rich product information on an e-commerce website and that these pages be devoted to specific customers. For example, a customer in healthcare is going to want to examine products that can help accomplish his or her job, they don’t want to view products catered specifically to someone cleaning a brewery or school.

“We’re trying to say, ‘Listen, you’re the owner of a daycare facility. We don’t want to just show you a hand wipe. We want to show you we have an entire program devoted to cleaning your mats,’” says Powers.

There are a variety of free tools that can be implemented to an e-commerce website to help with its metrics. Gosson touts Google For Business, which enables member websites to show better on the Google listing when people use Google Maps or Google search. All a business needs to become a member is a gmail account and valid U.S. address. Once the membership is setup, a company can add up to 20 photos of its operation to the internet, classify its business, and open itself up to customer reviews.

“This is the most important element that a business owner can implement on their website, especially someone local,” says Gosson.

Buyers are no longer surfing the internet on just their laptop or desktop — 42 percent of B2B customers use mobile devices to make purchases, according to Apruve’s report. The report also found that 76 percent of buyers value the ease of finding information on a website over everything. As a result, anyone with an e-commerce website would be well-advised to make it just as accessible from a smartphone as it is a work computer. 

Experts have differing opinions when it comes to whether or not an e-commerce website should have a registration wall. Gosson, for example, believes customer information is the only thing that should ever go behind a paywall. Anything else, he reasons, could hurt the website because companies like Google punish websites that have a good deal of private content. WAXIE used to put everything behind a registration wall, but has limited this action as of late. 

Schneringer says WAXIE still makes sure to keep proprietary information behind the wall because competitors have, in the past, taken information that was out in the open and used it to their own advantage.

If a distributor really desires a gated website, Powers says it still has a professional and moral responsibility toWhile the in-person demonstration and sales pitch still have an important place in the jan/san industry, the tastes of many customers have changed. Many, especially the younger generations, favor fast and convenient contact to face-to-face interaction.

The jan/san distributors with an e-commerce website find that some customers prefer to ask questions and place orders through the live chat system they’ve placed on their website. 

“Chat on your website is everything,” says Gosson.

The term “live” doesn’t have to be literal. If an inquiry comes in at 11 p.m., most chats are operated so that an employee can follow up during business hours. When the employees who have access to the chat — Gosson suggests that might be a customer service representative and supervisors — see the message, they can put the customer in touch with the technical support or sale representative who can answer his or her question.

Bruno and Powers — also fans of the online customer chat — say a text message system can come in handy. One way to streamline these chat and text requests is with an app developed for a phone or tablet. Hill & Markes is beta testing a mobile app so that it can take advantage of this unexplored opportunity. 

“The mobile app I think its going to be important for us on the foodservice side and janitorial side,” says Bruno. 

Bruno finds that laborers who work remotely across buildings, such as janitors and hospital workers, like to place their orders with a phone or tablet. With an app in place, that worker could make the order without taking his or her eye off their cart. Then after a moment or two, it’s on to the next cleaning task.

There are a few easy things jan/san distributors can do to a website to improve the customer’s experience. For one, placing the company’s contact information at an easy-to-find location helps save the customer time and gives the website more legitimacy. Providing access to a map to the business, the address, phone number and email lets the visitor know they’re dealing with a U.S. business who they can easily be put in touch with. 

Powers suggests jan/san distributors place a good amount of landing pages with rich product information on an e-commerce website and that these pages be devoted to specific customers. For example, a customer in healthcare is going to want to examine products that can help accomplish his or her job, they don’t want to view products catered specifically to someone cleaning a brewery or school.

“We’re trying to say, ‘Listen, you’re the owner of a daycare facility. We don’t want to just show you a hand wipe. We want to show you we have an entire program devoted to cleaning your mats,’” says Powers.

There are a variety of free tools that can be implemented to an e-commerce website to help with its metrics. Gosson touts Google For Business, which enables member websites to show better on the Google listing when people use Google Maps or Google search. All a business needs to become a member is a gmail account and valid U.S. address. Once the membership is setup, a company can add up to 20 photos of its operation to the internet, classify its business, and open itself up to customer reviews.

“This is the most important element that a business owner can implement on their website, especially someone local,” says Gosson.

Buyers are no longer surfing the internet on just their laptop or desktop — 42 percent of B2B customers use mobile devices to make purchases, according to Apruve’s report. The report also found that 76 percent of buyers value the ease of finding information on a website over everything. As a result, anyone with an e-commerce website would be well-advised to make it just as accessible from a smartphone as it is a work computer. 

Experts have differing opinions when it comes to whether or not an e-commerce website should have a registration wall. Gosson, for example, believes customer information is the only thing that should ever go behind a paywall. Anything else, he reasons, could hurt the website because companies like Google punish websites that have a good deal of private content. WAXIE used to put everything behind a registration wall, but has limited this action as of late. 

Schneringer says WAXIE still makes sure to keep proprietary information behind the wall because competitors have, in the past, taken information that was out in the open and used it to their own advantage.

If a distributor really desires a gated website, Powers says it still has a professional and moral responsibility to at least make safety data sheet information accessible and easy to find at all times. If the customer cannot find that information, he says, it could make a bad situation worse. 

Distributors should also leave rich product information, like specs, features and photos in front of the wall, he says.

A jan/san distributor who has yet to establish an e-commerce website shouldn’t feel doomed. Essendant found that the majority of jan/san distributors with an e-commerce website still do less than half of their sales online, suggesting the offline sale is still very important. However, there’s a lot of business to be lost by not having an e-commerce website, too. And with the cost of entry into B2B e-commerce much cheaper than it was before, it’s time to grab that business.

“If you’re not invested in e-commerce or you haven’t made they shift, then you’ve got to do it now,” says Bruno. “It’s here, it’s not coming.” 

 at least make safety data sheet information accessible and easy to find at all times. If the customer cannot find that information, he says, it could make a bad situation worse. 

Distributors should also leave rich product information, like specs, features and photos in front of the wall, he says.

A jan/san distributor who has yet to establish an e-commerce website shouldn’t feel doomed. Essendant found that the majority of jan/san distributors with an e-commerce website still do less than half of their sales online, suggesting the offline sale is still very important. However, there’s a lot of business to be lost by not having an e-commerce website, too. And with the cost of entry into B2B e-commerce much cheaper than it was before, it’s time to grab that business.

“If you’re not invested in e-commerce or you haven’t made they shift, then you’ve got to do it now,” says Bruno. “It’s here, it’s not coming.”