The NCMA recognized the best examples of paper, web and mobile catalog applications at the recent National Catalog Mangers Association (NCMA) conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. The mobile and web catalog categories are evaluated based on their design, navigation, use of technology, innovation, interactivity and quality of content.
Dayco Products took top honors with the President's Award for Catalog Excellence in the web catalog category, while K&N Engineering took gold in the mobile catalog app category. Dayco also took the silver position in the mobile catalog category.
Dayco updates website, improves mobile app
Earlier in 2014, Dayco launched its updated website, DaycoProducts.com, which includes parts look-up information on every page in the site, mobile optimization and multiple languages. The site also includes a blog, and a "where to buy" element to direct customers to the nearest sales location for Dayco parts, along with the ability to look up parts based on license plate numbers and VIN numbers.
"If you are on the automotive section or heavy-duty section of the website, you can automatically find that part in the catalog. If you are in the HD section, you have the HD part of the catalog," says Sherry Mathis, manager of sales and marketing technology at Dayco. "It really makes cataloging convenient."
The improved navigation and parts search capabilities have improved customer service, Mathis says. "The response has been great, because no matter where you go on the site you have access to that data," Mathis says. "Instead of having the website here, and the catalog content someplace else, it's all in one spot, so users don't have to bounce around to different sites."
The Dayco parts look-up mobile app provides instant access to a complete list of Dayco parts, routings, and installation instructions for each vehicle's year, make and model. Users can scan the VIN off the car, enter the license plate number and state, or speak the VIN or license number into the phone.
Dayco first launched the mobile app in 2012. "Back then, a lot of companies were launching mobile apps just to have one," Mathis says. "We wanted to launch something that people would use."
Dayco's cataloging group worked with an external software developer to create the app, which is targeted at technicians, do-it-yourselfers, counter people, and anyone else who might need to look up parts using the VIN. According to Mathis, the company marketed the new app using e-mail campaigns, press releases and a major rollout at AAPEX.
"We had people in the booth the entire show just to see that app," Mathis says. "People were amazed that you could scan a VIN and bring up all of the parts information."
The key benefit for Dayco is allowing customers to find part information while they are standing next to the vehicle, rather than having to go to a desktop computer and look things up. "That's a huge convenience for them," Mathis says. "The technician in the bay can just punch in the license plate number, scan the VIN and find the parts they need."
Mobile-optimized website improves service
K&N built its first mobile specific website in 2008, and in 2013/2014 built a new mobile Web platform for the company's brands. "We built Web search tools in response to requests from K&N consumers to research our products for their vehicles using their mobile devices," says Tim Martin, chief operations officer at K&N Engineering. "Consumers also want to find local K&N sellers near them using their phones, and these applications enable that."
Mobile traffic represents approximately 40 percent of overall K&N online traffic.
According to Martin, the mobile site is targeted at consumers, while it is also useful for salespeople. "Many questions don't come from across a parts counter where paper catalogs or computerized catalogs are available," Martin says.
The company opted for an optimized mobile website instead of developing applications for mobile devices. "We chose to use a mobile-aware website rather than an installed application because most K&N users do not want to install an app to perform a quick search, and this gives us greater design flexibility," Martin says. "The mobile site applications are compatible with Apple iOS, Android and other mobile platforms."
The website detects the mobile device being used and optimizes the information and presentation to match the device. "This makes the mobile search and catalog applications available to anyone who visits KNFILTERS.COM or our other brand sites. We marketed the sites through search engines and various other online marketing channels," Martin says.
Going mobile isn't easy
According to Mathis, creating the Dayco mobile app was a difficult learning experience in many ways. "Finding a developer was a learning experience, understanding the process of when you develop for iOS versus Android and that those are two separate processes was also challenging," Mathis says. "When we started we thought an app was an app, but it really isn't like that."
Martin says the biggest challenge at K&N was defining the functionality of the site. "The proliferation of screen sizes, application platforms, and protocols require a fairly adaptive software design approach. The constant changes in products and K&N local dealer information require us to have excellent connectivity to data," Martin says.
For companies planning to develop an application, Mathis suggests shopping around for technology partners. "If you are using an outside vendor, talk to several developers," Mathis says. "Don't assume that the cheapest price is the way you want to go. The app is a reflection of your company, and you want to do it right."
Making sure the part attribute data was available for the website and the mobile app was also a challenge at Dayco. "We had to do a full court press to get all of the information together and load it into our database so it could be used for these applications," Mathis says. "If someone goes into your website and they can't find an image, or the dimensions of the parts, or information is lacking, that's a real turn-off for them."
The good news: once that data is in place, updates to the database can be automatically cascaded through the website and mobile app instantly.
Making your app or mobile website as device-agnostic as possible can also help ease development and support efforts. "HTML and Web development standards have evolved to make it easier to develop for multiple platforms," Martin says. "There are occasionally some challenges and opportunities to add new features, and we have dedicated staff that work to manage the evolution of the sites, create new content and develop new software capabilities for our websites."
Mathis agrees that having ongoing support and development resources is an important element of any mobile or Web-based catalog offering. "These are a critical part of our business, so we'll never just sit back and say we're done," Mathis says. "We're always going to be improving these capabilities."
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