1800Mattress.com launched an updated e-commerce website April 12, with the goal of giving consumers a more interactive and personalized shopping experience.
The enhanced site, which allows consumers to create 1800Mattress.com profiles, also features product suggestions based on past browsing history. Shoppers with personalized online accounts will also receive special offers and promotions.
“When we have a special sale coming up, like around the holidays, or we’ve made a buy on a product, we’ll send those offers out to registered users through e-mail,” said Donald Rowley, CIO of 1800Mattress.com.
The site, which the company upgraded over a three-month period, also provides simpler retail location searches and lets consumers browse by price, brand and feel. Customers can also track inventory in real-time.
Other new features include 24-hour customer service through click-to-call and click-to-chat functionality. Agents will be based in the US and available 365 days a year.
“If you’re on the site, instead of picking up your phone, you can insert your number and then the system dials out to you and connects you to an agent,” said Rowley. He added that the retailer will use these numbers for outbound telemarketing once the company creates a plan to do so.
The website’s “Mattress Academy” section offers information about sleep and health, and how to choose the appropriate mattress.
“We think the multichannel customer is the best customer,” said Rowley. “We want to build the site out even further so customers can rely on it for general information on sleep and health.”
Rowley said the company decided to redesign the site to better “integrate e-commerce to our back-end systems.”
“If a customer called and wanted a mattress, our telesales agents had systems to check to see if the mattress was available,” he said. “But we couldn’t do that on the back end of our website. That developed into a more holistic thought process.”
1800Mattress.com uses IBM WebSphere‘s e-commerce platform.
