Dot Foods
Dot Foods makes the complex simple with a customer-centric digital strategy
Deployment of COVID-19 microsite
Worth of excess product sold in first 2-months on microsite
Projected increase in online revenue
Pioneers with big dreams of streamlining the food supply chain
In 1960, Robert and Dorothy Tracy founded Associated Dairy Products Company (now Dot Foods) out of the back of their family’s station wagon. They dreamed of giving customers access to affordable products and helping food industry suppliers increase their sales.
60 years and three generations of Tracy family leaders later, Dot Foods has transformed the food industry and is the largest food industry redistribution company in North America.
Dot Foods owes its success to their business model, shared values, the talents of 6,400 employees and the Tracy family’s leadership. Dot Foods is considered a B2B food service leader and serves as a much-needed “buy by the truck-load” food-supply partner sitting in between food manufacturers like P&G, Kellogg’s, General Mills, etc. and consumer channels.
Today, Dot Foods makes more products accessible to more people than ever before and is hyper-focused on driving growth. To differentiate, Dot Foods looked to embark on a digital transformation journey and own their entire distribution network. Dot Foods partnered with Episerver and Valtech to engineer new experiences for the end-user that would change the way the promise of shared growth was delivered to their customers.
The big dreams continue with goals to triple online revenue
This may sound strange coming from a technology provider, but it’s not always enough to just throw technology at a problem. Companies who embark on digital transformation journeys must not be afraid of culture or mindset shifts. Dot Foods created a company-wide mindset around ecommerce to rally around goals including:
• Introduce an intuitive, contextual and inspiring ecommerce experience
• Bring all channels together in one digital interface
• Deliver shared growth to customers
• Increase online sales from $1 billion to $3 billion
From simple transactions to customer-centric experiences
Dot Foods’ initial ecommerce portal was a simple transactional site. Dot Foods knew that in order to transform, they had to change their focus to putting the customer at the center of the experience. Dot Foods wanted to serve their customers in more meaningful ways online by being more transparent, proactive and anticipating their needs. Ultimately, Dot Foods strived to deliver an ecommerce experience that went beyond transactions and served as a trusted companion to their customers.
Migrating to Episerver enabled Dot Foods to take advantage of the benefits of a leading digital experience platform and swiftly respond to evolving customer expectations. They are now able to activate all moments across the customer journey. Plus, they can move extremely quickly as evidenced by their ability to deploy a COVID-19 microsite featuring alternative, high-demand COVID-19 products, in a manner of just two weeks.
Harnessing the power of Episerver features and functionality
Dot Foods leverages many features and capabilities of Episerver to deliver a customer-centric experience. Here are some of the innovative ways Dot Foods is using Episerver to solve their complex business challenges:
• Episerver Product Recommendations enables Dot Foods to provide data-driven recommendations for commonly ordered items or seasonality trends
• Dot Foods enables their suppliers to advertise on their site through Episerver’s search and navigation and tracks success of campaigns through analytics dashboards
• Dot Foods uses personalized search and navigation to curate shortcuts for specific audiences and individuals
• Integration to an enterprise PIM, EnterWorks makes it easy for Dot Foods customers to find the right products
• Rich product detail pages enable customers to easily decide what to purchase
• Dot Foods’ unique distribution model is reflected through dynamic pricing
• Multi-cart management makes it convenient for customers to make the right buying decisions
• Rich account dashboard allows customers to access order history, frequently ordered products, commonly used brands and real-time notifications
• With the help of Valtech, Dot Foods deployed a COVID-19 microsite in two weeks and moved more than $1 million worth of excess product in two months
Delivering the Dot Foods brand promises through digital
To bring their business to new heights in the digital world, Dot Foods relied on Episerver and Valtech. As a result of the transformation, Dot Foods has a solution that puts the customer at the center of the experience. With ecommerce, Dot Foods is uncovering operational efficiency, increasing overall customer satisfaction, driving conversions and personalizing the experience.
To personalize the experience for customers, Dot Foods elevates relevant products and merchandise, offers product recommendations, fine-tunes search and continues to enhance the customer experiences with Episerver.
The Dot Foods digital transformation demonstrates that even the most complex, sophisticated challenges can be made simple with Episerver.
I am extremely proud that we could generate the kind of business lift we did for Dot Foods with the COVID-19 microsite built on Episerver, in a matter of just two weeks
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Casper Aagaard Rasmussen
Group SVP, Technology Valtech
Fakta om prosjektet
Se resultatet på www.dotfoods.com
