VCP delivers tools to make business easier

ACCESS offers visitors a whole new user experience at www.vcpint.com

For its owner, a Web site is like success. It is not a destination; it is a journey.

That is the experience of VCP International, where a trend-setting Web site, launched in 2001, was substantially updated with new features and functions this year.

When Floor Care Professional introduced the new look and functions of the site in its September 2009 edition of the magazine, Don Russell pointed out that the redesigned VCP presence on the Web opened a new era when improvements could be made constantly rather than occasionally.

Russell, VCP's chief executive officer, said new dealers expect his company to be an industry leader in every way, including its Internet portal.

He said, "It's a crucial balance for us to maintain a familiar face for thousands of loyal dealers around the world even while we respond to the changing demands of people who are used to the rapid developments of the Internet, like social media marketing."

To have that balance, www.vcpint.com uses the ACCESS concept to guide visitors to the pages where they can look up products, compare results and satisfy customers' needs with minimum hassle.

Product descriptions, schematic drawings, and shopping cart tallies can be found quickly and retrieved easily.

"Our dealers who provide repair services are excited about our Web site's library of schematics, the largest anywhere in our industry," Russell said. "We recently added more than 1,000 sets of drawings to the site."

Dealers now choose from an array of useful methods for ordering and tracking the goods they need from VCP International. Dealers can also download images they need from a vast online gallery of parts and produsts maintained for them by VCP.

Timely product comparisons of their own history of interaction with VCP -- by year-to-date and year-to-year -- help dealers track sales trends and volumes in time to confirm or adjust their own marketing plans.

VCP is constantly responding to dealer requests with modifications and enhancements of its ACCESS site.

"Our success has always turned on our ability to make the latest and best available to dealers even while we support the reliable products that have sustained them and us through the years," Russell said. "But it has always been about 'What's new?' The Internet gives us a revolutionary way to provide fresh answers instantly."

Reprinted from Floor Care Professional, January 2010