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GE RENEWABLE ENERGY CREATES A USER-FRIENDLY B2B STOREFRONT.


LEARN HOW GE RENEWABLE ENERGY DEPLOYED A DIGITAL COMMERCE PORTAL IN JUST 10
WEEKS.

 

May 2022

4 min read



 


Use of GE Renewable Energy’s existing Onshore Wind Parts digital commerce site
was declining. Shoppers trying to buy turbine parts were frustrated with the
interface, inconsistent part naming, and slow load times. The company needed to
quickly build a new B2B storefront that addressed these issues.


“Our customers were having challenges navigating our old commerce solution,
finding the parts they need, adding products, and checking out — really in
completing their journey.”

 




Livia Miyabara
Marketing & Strategy Leader, GE Parts and Repairs

Using a phased minimum viable product (MVP) approach, GE Renewable Energy
crafted and implemented a fully functioning, market competitive, and responsive
B2B digital commerce solution with a modern user experience in just 10 weeks.
The MVP approach has proven successful for companies looking to expedite their
ecommerce initiatives. These tips were impactful for GE Renewable Energy:


USE CUSTOMER FEEDBACK TO INFORM THE MVP APPROACH.

GE Renewable Energy began by conducting online surveys and phone interviews with
customers to identify their pain points and how to improve the shopping
experience. Customers told GE that they wanted a simplified site where it was
easy to find parts and prices and quickly complete their buying journey. The
market segmentation fueled by this research helped inform GE Renewable Energy’s
viable product approach.

The MVP approach helped focus the team on the top features needed to build a
superior site that met customer expectations.

“At the start, there’s so much you want to do so fast. You want to transform
everything. But the phased approach makes you pause and organize your thoughts
and your priorities, create that MVP plan, execute that, and build on those
successes. They may be smaller successes, but they build up to that larger
overall program success.”


CREATE A PILOT PROGRAM — AND GET CUSTOMER FEEDBACK AGAIN.

GE’s MVP approach began with focusing on the customer.

“We knew the customers’ needs had to be front and center. Everything related to
system integration and automated order processing was out because customers
don’t see those processes. That focused us on helping users find the right part,
simplifying the checkout process, and driving price transparency and
self-service.”

With the help of implementation partner Deloitte Digital, GE used B2B Commerce
to build a lightweight pilot program, with a refined front-end shopping
experience but no back-end implementation. Customers could see and engage with
the solution and give feedback about what the company was building — and what
features the storefront was still lacking.

“It was critical for us to have customer voices heard throughout the process and
to really ensure that we’re keeping them as the North Star through this
project.”


CREATE A STOREFRONT EXPERIENCE THAT MIMICS THE B2C EXPERIENCE.

Based on feedback from the pilot, GE and Deloitte Digital tweaked the
storefront. The portal has responsive design and mobile capability, and presents
a simplified typical B2C shopping experience.

The new virtual storefront features self-service capabilities that allow
customers to search by keyword and part number. They can simply enter the wind
turbine model, and the results will show only parts relevant to that turbine.

Users can drill down through multiple category hierarchies and ad hoc facets,
check product availability, identify obsolete parts and their replacements,
request a quote, place orders, and check order status.

Streamlining B2B search for expansive catalogs and complex products directly
addresses customer pain points most specifically the clunky, time-consuming
buying process.


USE AUTOMATION TO SIMPLIFY PROCESSES SO STAFF CAN FOCUS ON CUSTOMERS, NOT TASKS.

After the front end and its user interface were complete, GE and Deloitte
Digital integrated B2B commerce with the ERP and pricing systems, and built
automation into the system’s back end to handle order processing and
fulfillment.

“Customers don’t need to wait for a human being to process their orders, driving
faster response and return to service, which is a priority when our customers
want to avoid a stopped turbine and continue producing renewable energy. The
automation also frees up employees to focus on helping users find the right part
and answering questions or providing additional details about a product.”


GET BUY-IN FROM ALL AREAS OF THE ORGANIZATION.

While the implementation team built this superior storefront experience, the
business team maintained constant contact with the organization’s financial,
business, and technical sides to earn their buy-in. The team demoed the latest
features and sought feedback before moving to each next step.

That allowed the team to measure success as they went along — and iterate as
needed.

“It was essential for our success that the business and technology teams were
tightly aligned. And there’s a broader set of people on both the business and
technology sides who came together to make sure we were releasing the right
functions and features.”

Getting large budgets approved can be difficult, but by keeping the financial
side involved and showing successes along the way, the implementation team was
more able to get approval for smaller expenses as they came up in the natural
course of deployment.

Since rolling out the new storefront, GE Renewable Energy has seen increased
customer engagement, growing its user base by 35% in the last six months. Most
users are accessing the site at least twice a week.

The data collected from those engagements helps the company better understand
the customer journey and continue to modify the store.

“Now we know what features customers are using, what they’re looking for, and
what they’re looking for that they can’t find. With that information, we can
really improve the customer experience, and continue to drive sales.”

About the Author

 




John Cardaris
Product Marketing Manager

 
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MORE RESOURCES


 

Webinar

Build B2B Commerce Experiences Fast on Lightning feat. GE Renewable Energy


Second Edition: State of Commerce


Report

State of Commerce Report

Second Edition: State of Commerce

Playbook

How B2B Sales Teams Win with Digital Commerce



 
 


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