Wholesaler - Thomas Ridley Foodservice - believes Accord
has played a critical role in its success and growth in the fiercely
competitive foodservice market. A BCP client since the mid 1990’s,
the company has recently made a major investment in a new IT infrastructure,
together with new Accord Telesales and Accord
Web Ordering systems, which it believes will further improve efficiency
and the service it offers to customers.
The Company
Thomas Ridley Foodservice is an independent business providing a trusted
and flexible solution for professionals in the kitchen and throughout
an establishment. Thomas Ridley provide a multi-temperature delivery
service to the catering industry throughout East Anglia and North London,
delivering ambient, chilled, frozen food and catering sundries. The
product range includes branded products and their own label Country
Range. The customer base includes hotels, pubs and restaurants, nursing
and residential homes, golf clubs and leisure, hospitals, industry and
shipping.
Initial Investment
The new investment builds on an Accord system
first implemented in the mid 1990’s when Ridley’s were looking
for a powerful, cutting-edge food & drink distribution package to
help them manage and control all aspects of their business. Accord
was chosen from a short list of more than 6 solutions then, being one
of the only systems able to handle both sides of Thomas Ridley’s
business (Cash & Carry and Delivered), offering all the functionality
required (proactive Telesales and comprehensive and flexible pricing
features, in particular) and providing a solid foundation, able to accommodate
the future growth of the company.
Hugh Godfrey, MD, considers Accord “a
brilliant system” which has allowed the company to improve procedures,
reduce operating costs, maximise sales, streamline stocks and improve
customer service and management decision making. “It gave us back
control of our business and in so doing saved us £’000s”.
Latest Investment
Thomas Ridley’s latest investment introduces new technologies
and Accord enhancements to provide further
efficiencies and ensure the company maintains its competitive edge.
A modern Windows based network infrastructure has replaced an inflexible
and restrictive Workgroup network. The new architecture is easy to manage
and expand, highly secure and reliable and gives Thomas Ridley a host
of new functionality, including flexible and secure Email and Internet
access to all PCs on the network and the framework necessary to implement
Web Ordering.
This new infrastructure was implemented with minimum disruption to
normal trading, being built at BCP then installed at Thomas Ridley over
the course of a weekend, ready for trading as usual on the Monday morning
and configuration of the new Telesales system.
Designed to promote a proactive and intuitive approach to Telesales,
the new Accord Telesales system provides Thomas
Ridley with a powerful combination of features to improve efficiency,
grow turnover and improve customer service. These include:
• Modern Computer Telephone Integration (CTI) to help operators
to work faster and more accurately
• Instant access to a comprehensive range of customer information
and real time stock and price data to help operators to interact intelligently
with customers, promote deals and promotions and develop the order
• CRM and Customer Feedback features so that customer contact
from all sources – EDI, fax, email, telesales, web…. - can
be co-ordinated in the Telesales operation to ensure consistency, improve
efficiency and maintain customer service levels. The system ensures
duplication of contact is avoided, call backs are not missed and builds
up a comprehensive record of customer – and competitor –
information which can be used to identify trends or problems and as
a valuable resource for forecasting and planning.
Benefits from the new Telesales system have come through immediately
for Thomas Ridley, in terms of improved customer service and enhanced
levels of information available to their telesales operators, all of
whom have adopted it quickly, finding it easy and intuitive to use.
Accord Web Ordering is due to go live imminently
and will bring further improvements to customer service, allowing those
customers who have difficulty placing their orders within the normal
work schedule to order via the Internet at a time convenient to them
– any time day or night.
The Results
Justin Godfrey, Director at Thomas Ridley, explains: “The main
objectives of our latest investment were to reduce costs, improve efficiency,
grow turnover and, most importantly, to improve the service offered
to our customers. It’s still very early days, but we are delighted
with the improvements we’ve seen so far. We’re expecting
significant cost and efficiency benefits to come through, alongside
sales growth and further improvements in customer service, as Web Ordering
goes live, the Telesales system is more fully utilised and full advantage
taken of additional features like mix & match promotions and customer
feedback.”
Since implementing its original Accord system
Thomas Ridley Foodservice has grown from a £15m turnover company
with 85 employees, servicing 1800 accounts to a £25m operation
with over 120 employees, servicing 3000 customers. Hugh Godfrey believes
that “Accord has played an important
part in our growth and will continue to contribute significantly in
the future. BCP have a clear understanding of our business and the market
in which we operate; Accord delivers powerful
functionality critical to success in the foodservice sector.”
