Cook's Direct Customer Case Study

Customer Success Story

Cook's Direct

Located in Warrenville, IL, Cook’s Direct was founded in 1997 and is one of the top food service equipment distributors in the U.S. They are a leader in high-quality commercial kitchen equipment and supplies for the most demanding environments.

Cook's successfully distributes products to businesses looking for trusted brands with 22 years of experience matching the right equipment to a facility’s requirements. They specialize in making purchasing easy with expert support, fast response, and turn-key installation. The company’s unique and experienced brand of correctional-based products helps these facilities run smoothly and have even invented products to help the correctional business sector.

Project

B2B, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Industry

Food Service Equipment

The Challenge

Cook's Direct pursued and settled on an eCommerce solution that was sold to them as fully integrated with their ERP. Unfortunately, they started having problems at the beginning of their project. The eCommerce vendor experienced a high amount of employee turnover. These problems caused Cook's initial project to be delayed based upon several missed deadlines. Eventually, they decided to go live with a site that didn't meet their full expectations but did get them a minimal web presence. The thinking was that they needed to have something and then they could build upon it from there. They ended up with a site that was simple, bland, and not very robust.

As Cook’s looked to the next phase of building out their site, they started running into other issues. Any changes they wanted to make or additional functionality they thought of adding resulted in a big proposed project or high cost. Although basic integration of ERP data existed, it was not as robust as it had been sold on. When they needed support to address technical or functional issues that would arise, they experienced long wait times for them to be addressed. Support issues that were addressed didn’t appear to be researched fully to get to the root of the problem, just superficial fixes to make the problem appear to go away. The whole experience left Cook's with a functioning website, but not one that would give the type of experience they had envisioned for their customers.

“Our customers are happy with our site. They get consistent pricing across the board and also constancies with how they submit orders.

We get to give our customers positive, informed experiences with up-to-date, accurate information delivered in near real-time every day.” - Luke Belding, eCommerce Manager at Cooks Direct

The Solution

Cook's decided they needed a different eCommerce platform as they didn't see any way to address their current issues. They started researching eCommerce platforms that integrated with their Dynamics ERP. It was then they discovered Nomad. After a thorough evaluation, Cook's moved forward on implementing the Nomad eCommerce solution to address their current needs and concerns, including meeting the team in person. They were comfortable with the team’s knowledge and experience with eCommerce and their ERP. This gave them a higher degree of confidence in the overall solution and project.

Cooks found that members of the Nomad project and support teams were knowledgeable, approachable, and quick to respond. Whether it is specific configuration questions to take advantage of functionality in the system or support requests that get to the root of the problems, the Nomad team has been highly responsive to Cook's needs.

They also discovered the Nomad platform provided a level of integration that they had hoped for. Entering data into multiple systems was now a thing of the past. Cook's has an internal department that manages pricing of their products and makes sure that these are reflected in their ERP. In their previous eCommerce solution, that pricing had to be manually entered and checked on the site, which was time-intensive. With Nomad, that pricing structure is now automatically updated on their site without manual intervention.

Another significant benefit for Cook's was the ability to leverage their customer price groups. Since Nomad was able to integrate data from their ERP effectively, this gave Cook's the ability to personalize eCommerce by giving users "customer-specific experiences.” This type of experience was not possible with their previous platform.

“It’s great to have that level of personal connection with a team that knows their stuff. I feel like I learn something new every time I talk to them.”

The Result

Today, Cook’s Direct has a thriving online B2B webstore integrating with Dynamics 365 Business Central. Nomad has opened the door for Cook's to leverage other capabilities, such as SEO marketing using analytics supported by the platform. This has resulted in a dramatic increase in organic traffic since moving to Nomad. They have also been able to offer Punch-out integration to their large national accounts. This new functionality has allowed Cook’s to match offerings that their bigger competitors currently have.

Cook’s has found the Nomad solution to be cost-effective as well.

Cook’s and Nomad have developed a long-lasting relationship that many businesses strive for but don’t achieve with their vendors. When it comes to questions and support, the Nomad team is there, ready to help in any way. Because of the excellent customer service, Luke can now talk to customers with more in-depth knowledge about the system. He answers questions and speaks confidently about what he can or cannot do for a customer.

"Going with Nomad has freed up a lot of my time. I don’t have to constantly do pricing updates on multiple platforms. As far as productivity, I can focus more on the marketing side and focus on running a successful website. We're moving in the right direction as far as our organic traffic. I maintained two websites before Nomad and had to do those kinds of updates on two different platforms - that wasn’t fun. So the time savings for me are massive."

About Nomad eCommerce

Located in O’Fallon, IL, a suburb of St. Louis, Nomad eCommerce has been in business for over 20 years, developing web and eCommerce solutions.

We provide a universal catalog & content management system enabling fully integrated B2B & B2C transactions with Microsoft Dynamics, Macola & SYSPRO. Nomad has created award-winning, customer-centric solutions that help companies successfully integrate data from their ERP to their web storefront, increasing customer usability and satisfaction.

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