With a specific focus on outdoor living, British heritage and quality, Joules Clothing has experienced phenomenal business growth in recent years.
From the humble beginnings of selling country clothing at county shows, through to the establishment of the ‘Joules’ brand in 1997 and a children’s range known as ‘Little Joule’ in 2005, Joules Clothing now boasts current revenues of over £38 million and is planning further significant expansion. Throughout this growth, Joules Clothing remains essentially a family brand that aims to give customers a great shopping experience through quality of product and service.
Underpinning Joules’ business operation is PrimaNet, the modular, enterprise-wide business solution developed specifically for the clothing, footwear and accessories industry by Prima Solutions. PrimaNet provides Joules with a flexible and responsive platform for running a fast-growing,
multi-channel, service-orientated business.
Developing a True Multi-Channel Business
Over the last 6 years Joules has grown from a business with two stores and a wholesale operation into an international, multi-channel business with thriving mail order and online sales, 32 stores, a number of department store concessions and a wholesale supply operation supporting over 500 outlets as well as distributors across the world.
In developing an extended multi-channel business, Joules needed to create efficiencies across all aspects of the business including demand planning, supply chain management, stock control, order processing and fulfilment together with strong financial control and comprehensive business reporting and analysis.
“The ability to seamlessly add new sales channels into the existing system and processes was a fundamental requirement” states Nick Wyld, Head of IT at Joules. “Prima allows us to do just that. It is a true multi-channel solution”.
Joules are working very closely with Prima Solutions across the whole business in what is a mission-critical area of the business and consider them to be a strategic partner and trusted advisor.
“Prima are flexible enough to accommodate any necessary changes to the application and its implementation to support the ongoing business changes within our multi-channel operation.” adds Nick
Delivering the Ultimate in Customer Experience
As a customer-service orientated business offering the very latest fashion wear (including multi-phase sales of stock within each season), Joules need to know exactly what is available to sell and, equally importantly, what their customers like to buy.
Joules are renowned in the industry for their high levels of customer service and their business systems are designed to further enhance the overall customer experience. The Customer Service Agents (CSA’s) can access specific customers’ buying patterns and history, review special promotions, deal effectively with queries, view returns history and provide seamless integration with carrier systems and credit card or voucher payments at the point of despatch. All of this can be achieved through a single multi-paned screen.
Through efficiency and the availability of pertinent information, the CSA’s are now able to provide an improved level of customer service and up sell in a friendly and knowledgeable way. This has resulted in multiple repeat purchases and an increased average basket size and value for each purchase as well as enabling each CSA to handle a higher volume of customer orders. As a result, Joules can more quickly turn stock into cash for re-investment into the business.
“The system adds a new dimension to our customer interaction and service. Our CSA’s can operate more efficiently and proactively, which allows us to grow the business with limited additional overhead as well as generate more profitable and loyal longer term customers”, says Nick.
The unique design of the PrimaNet software sees it bring together all the functionality required by a Customer Service Team in a modern, multi-channel business, with full configurability to the company’s individual business requirements.
Having a single view of activity across all sales channels provides Joules with the intelligence to more pro-actively manage customer marketing campaigns based on sales history. Seamless integration across the sales channels is the key element to achieving a flexible approach to the market resulting in maximizing margin.
A consumer may choose to buy something from a catalogue, return it to a store and buy a replacement on the website. Using the Customer Services module, the CSA can intelligently react to customer queries relating to orders through any sales channel.
“We have had direct input into the product design, specifically around how the CSA works. The single user interface eliminates the need to access different systems and is very easy to use and learn, which makes our team more effective and minimises training time and costs. “
Going the Extra Mile . . . .
Typical of a fast-moving growing business, Joules run with multiple IT projects at any point in time. Being such an agile business, they need a supplier who can match that agility in terms of being able to co-ordinate and manage a stream of project activity.
Eve Davies, Commercial Director at Joules comments:
“We are really pleased with the approach that Prima take to our business. It is a real partnership and we constantly push forward together”.
The Prima Solutions team has a multi-level working relationship with Joules. From customer service advisers and back office users to company directors, the Prima Solutions team understands the different roles and job functions that the system needs to support.
“As a client, we feel special – they really do work as an extension to our business. It’s a two-way commitment which helps us to achieve our business goals. In fact, Prima Solutions have been through the whole business evolution process with us.”