£1 million door investment
Hallmark Doors and Panels has invested £1 million in the business after recording a threefold increase in orders since the start of the lockdown.
While some businesses were caught out by the sudden and dramatic shift online which happened in 2020, Hallmark was in the fortunate position of already having a significant web presence and online ordering system in place created by The Consultancy, the company said, which it believes has been key to its achievements.
Paul Spencer, Hallmark’s sales director said: “We’ve been working with The Consultancy for more than three years and during that time they have built us a new website, created a dedicated ordering portal, and delivered bespoke online door designers for both trade and retail window customers.
“These were already helping us to support existing customers and win a significant number of new ones before the pandemic, but the real exponential growth for Hallmark came in 2020, which is when we were able to see the true value of the investments we had made.
“The whole market was almost forced online in March last year and change which might have taken years, happened over just a few months. The suppliers who benefited most from that were clearly the ones, like Hallmark, who already had user friendly websites, efficient online ordering set-ups and consumer focused designers.
“The retail door designer on our website, for instance, enabled us to deliver enquiries throughout the pandemic to both existing and new trade customers who didn’t have their own online lead generation tools, and that really strengthened our relationships with them.”
Much of the value from Hallmark’s investment with The Consultancy has come from an approach of continually evolving and developing its online presence, rather than sitting back and thinking that the job was done once the website and door designer went live, the company said.
The surge in business Hallmark has seen over the past year has enabled it to invest in new machinery and a new 15-vehicle fleet, as well as in more online innovation.
It said it has effectively been able to fast track some of the investments it had planned as a result of its success over the past year and continue its focus on efficiency and customer service initiatives.
The company’s next big project with The Consultancy is to link the online ordering system with its production and delivery systems so that it can eliminate manual order processing and give customers access to instant order status updates via their online accounts.