Therma-Tru Site Features Real-Time 'Door Designer':

Saturday, June 01, 2002

http://www.thermatru.com/design/doordesigner.shtml
Read what Ecom-Ohio has to say about Therma-Tru

Therma-Tru has established a position in the building materials industry through the manufacture and sale of insulated door systems. The company, founded in 1962 by David K. Welles Sr., has developed the reputation as a creative corporation utilizing an aggressive market strategy with major emphasis on product research and development.

Between corporate headquarters in Maumee, OH, and manufacturing facilities in Roland, OK, Fredericksburg, VA, Butler, IN, and Matamoros, Mexico, Therma-Tru employs over 2,000 full-time individuals. Therma-Tru has 150 certified distributors throughout the domestic U.S. and the international marketplace with annual sales in excess of $365,000,000.

Working with a design firm, Therma-Tru added a door designer to its web site that enables customers to view a variety of door configurations in real-time based upon the specifications that each individual user inputs. The information to create each visual display is pulled from an Oracle database. The overall image is an assembly of individual components representing the various products that make up the complete door system. Therma-Tru administrators have direct and total access via a back-end administration tool to update and maintain the menu system, user options, graphic images, and configuration rules that drive the system. Information is linked to Therma-Tru's internal data systems and users are presented with real-time, up-to-date information every time they visit.

Key features include:

1. Visual representation of the home’s facade in real time so that decisions regarding purchase may be made.
2. Rules-driven operation, so that doors can be properly built with components only being allowed that work together
3. Open navigation system increases ease of use by allowing users to modify any characteristic of their door system at any time, as opposed to a step-by-step decision process.
4. File and print capabilities of designs for easy retrieval or sharing

Reasons for Development

This site was designed entirely to simplify their expansive product line to help homeowners make design decisions regarding which doors to choose for their homes.

Benefits derived for Therma-Tru include:

1. Reduced cost of printed and disc-based catalog distribution
2. Increased ease of doing business
3. Enhanced sales opportunities
4. Competitive differentiator
5. Additional internal training resource

Benefits for dealers of Therma-Tru products include:

1. Simplification of sales process—a majority of sales decisions are made by the buyer prior to transaction
2. Customers can use rule engine and help features to become better educated regarding the product
3. Sales cycle times are reduced
4. Marketing efforts are more accessible to buyers via the internet

The barriers to developing this web application included:

1. Creating a communication bridge between product engineers, IT programmers and marketing personnel to create a unified solution
2. Finding a timely solution that met Therma-Tru’s annual marketing distribution deadlines
3. Keeping development budgets under control by streamlining the design, programming and management aspects of the project

Since the Door Designer has all of the product line rules built into it, it can be applied or repurposed as an internal training for not only call center employees but all employees.

On the consumer side, the impact of being able to see a large, full-color photograph of the system they are purchasing greatly the increases the probability of a sale. Also, giving consumer the ability to prioritize their purchasing decisions increases their comfort and confidence levels in making the purchase.

For dealers, the web-based or CD-ROM-based Door Designer can run on a stand alone kiosk, freeing up their service representatives and allowing customers to make decisions with less pressure.

On both the consumer and dealer side, customers may configure/ design a door system at home or work, print a summary of the system's specification, and simply walk this information into the dealership to make a purchase. Saving time for both consumer and dealers is the end result.

Currently, Therma-Tru distributes at a very small cost to any and all of their wholesalers and retailers.

Under development now, the product is evolving to include the transmission of component/system pricing including Therma-Tru's base pricing to the dealer's adjusted sales price.

The Door Designer system has opened up the possibility of Therma-Tru's selling directly to consumers. It has also introduced the possibility of completely replacing a large portion of Therma-Tru's print collaterals, such as catalogs, brochures, etc.

How Company is Leading thru New Application

This project was a multi-month initiative between a IT/marketing team at Therma-Tru and a team at Aardvark, Inc. Working together, these two teams designed, developed, and launched the Door Designer that may be viewed at http://www.thermatru.com/design/doordesigner.shtml.

The primary benefit created for customer service is that fewer questions and order problems come into the call center. Therefore, they are able to spend more time with customers that do call and enhance the probability of a sale.

- From eCom-Ohio

Back to Publications