The Challenge

Huebsch Services is a laundry and uniform services company. They will pick up and launder your company’s uniforms and floor mats, then deliver them back to you—clean and fresh. They also have an e-commerce site called Huebsch Direct where customers purchase uniforms and corporate apparel that can be embellished with their company logo, tagline, employee’s name, etc.

Code Pros was asked to take over this project more than two years ago because their previous development company was taking four weeks to turn around simple fixes to the site. The unresponsive service was not serving Huebsch well, and they needed a more attentive provider that could solve most issues in just a few days.

A second problem that needed immediate attention was the slow pricing response time on the e-commerce site. As an example of this Huebsch Direct experience, when you selected “Large” ‘Green” shirt, you would expect the website to display the price in the snap of your fingers. No such luck. It actually took 15 seconds to calculate the price. That’s not great, but it got even worse. As items were added to the cart, it slowed down the pricing calculation even more. If there were five items in the cart, it would take 60 seconds to calculate the next price. Not exactly a great customer experience. If someone in the Customer Service Department heard that a company was going to place an order of 10 items or more, they’d say, “Let me place that order for you” so the person wouldn’t have to work through that bad user experience.

The Strategy

For the response time issue, Code Pros stepped in confidently. We have a core value of responsiveness, so it was a matter of applying our exceptional customer service principles that are at the heart and soul of everyone at Code Pros. We understand the urgency of web issues and the need to respond quickly and skillfully.

Code Pros fully understood the frustration of slow online order response time. Looking into it, we identified the issues and noted updates on Huebsch Direct that would improve this situation. We created a plan with a timely schedule to improve performance—and ultimately, the all-important customer experience—with effective coding on the e-commerce site.

The Solution

The previous development company couldn’t figure out how to speed up the pricing calculations, but we did! After some in-depth analysis, we discovered that the algorithm used to determine the pricing had polynomial complexity. This explains the increase in time as a factor of placing more items in the cart. We were able to create a cache of pricing and have that pricing generate in such a way that the pricing data is returned in under 200ms no matter how many items are in the cart.

Another solution that was beneficial from the customer experience standpoint was the creation of dedicated “budgets” for customer accounts. With this approach, customers could have “budgets” created for their employees and for different departments with appropriate product selections and applicable budgets. Here’s an example: Bob’s Repair Shop is a customer of Huebsch. They wanted to have all their car mechanics dressed in the same style of shirt and in the same color. They wanted their inside office workers dressed in one of two different colors of several other shirts. Bob’s Repair Shop can now be set up with two departments, and their employees can be assigned to the proper group. Each employee can be given a budget of $50/year to spend on garments from the Huebsch catalog. The approved amount is paid by the company, and if the employee wants to purchase more, the balance is paid by the employee. It’s a pretty complex set of features that must work together–from setting up departments, clothing options and budgets to displaying them correctly and processing payment properly. Code Pros built it.

The Outcome

With expertise from Code Pros, the issues were corrected quickly. Response time for website fixes had been a serious issue, and we were able to solve most issues in three days or less, which was a huge improvement.

Improving the annoying lack of speed on the e-commerce site produced cheers from customers and company personnel. It was a collective, Bravo! The new normal returned pricing data in under 200ms no matter how many items were in the cart. (A note for our not-so-technical consumers: under 200ms= under 200 milliseconds, which is a developer’s goal for optimal response and a shopper’s dream to avoid accelerated frustration while attempting to place a simple order.) This update saved more than time. It also saved client relationships. These days, no one has the time or patience to wait for an unresponsive or incorrect order placement system.

Designing the customer “budget” accounts was another hit! It provided an excellent customer service solution with a quick and easy order process.

Thank you, Huebsch Services, for a productive business partnership and the chance to help you provide an exceptional customer experience, every time.