Clientbase Fulfilment
The £3.5 million turnover business was established in 1999; it employs around 90 core staff, although contract workers are used to boost numbers to as much as 150 during peak times. The head office is in Heathfield, Newton Abbott, from where Clientbase offers its full end-to-end outsourced solution for the management of home shopping businesses. This site comprises offices and warehousing; another site, just a few miles away at Modbury, is home to the contact centre operation.
Customers vary in size and scope of contract, and range from major German catalogue firms – for which Clientbase acts as the UK contact and returns centre – to home-grown mail order firms such as M&G, through to US-owned Day-Timer.
Four years ago, Clientbase’s directors realised that they needed new software if they were to progress and expand at the planned rate. The increase in demand for web-driven order fulfilment meant that Clientbase was finding it more difficult to meet clients’ complex business demands. “The system we had was good at the time, but technology had moved on and, as such, it had very basic functionality,” explains Smeddle. “We knew we had to find a system that would have the capability to manage all the intricacies of home shopping fulfilment – and that meant, in particular, finding a solution which would interface easily with clients’ websites.”
For a fulfilment house like Clientbase, there is a requirement for several areas of expertise. High-quality services are essential, as Smeddle says: “One area of expertise is a well-managed contact centre, which takes orders by telephone or email and meets all the customer service requirements. We also have to run a slick warehousing operation, from where we pick, pack and despatch stock – quickly, accurately and efficiently. But the other part, which is effectively the engine room for any business like ours, is the requirement for specialist software to manage the entire process, from end to end. The Sanderson solution does that, and more, and it’s testament to its role in this operation that I include it in our proposals for new business. We have what is widely recognised to be the best-of-breed home shopping fulfilment solution – and that’s part of our pitch now.”
As the business expands, Clientbase is confident that it can meet the demands of new clients, now that it has a modern, leading-edge solution: “We know that Sanderson will continue to develop Elucid and it will continue to be a leading solution for our market.” This includes functionality such as instalment billing, which will enable Clientbase to manage a TV shopping channel client via the Sanderson solution.
For the future, Clientbase is focused on doing what it does best – offering a highly competitive fulfilment service backed up by best-of-breed technological capability. The Elucid system from Sanderson is pivotal to the company’s growth plans and its ability to support business-to-business as well as business-to-consumer demands means that Clientbase is confident that this partnership will continue for many years.