Swarovski, the Austrian maker of cut crystal, jewellery and
related items, whose websites receive more than 600 million
visitors per year in 24 countries, saw its online checkouts speed
up by 20 per cent, and abandoned baskets reduce dramatically
thanks to application performance management software.
In the past, customers had to wait an average of 10 seconds for
the site to respond when ordering online, and the company
struggled to identify where the problems were. Customers wanted
an instant response, but were being driven away by an
unsatisfactory user experience. These slowdowns in web
performance were impacting revenue, and Swarovski knew something
had to be done.
Immediate improvements
In addition to customer problems, explains Rene Neubacher,
Swarovski’s senior technology consultant, ebusiness (b-to-c), the
company had a rudimentary and very technical dashboard that
didn’t tell the company much about user experience. What’s more,
the company itself was very fragmented with workers in different
IT departments seemingly speaking a different language from one
another.
In 2010, the business began a search for a solution to help the
team see where around the world orders were coming from and what
problems users were experiencing. Last spring it bought the
Compuware dynaTrace APM system and installed it in summer
2011.
Immediate benefits included a business dashboard that gave
Swarovski real-time data as well as historical information; the
IT department could see where errors were occurring before
customers could complain. The tool also identified where the
checkout process could be tweaked, resulting in a 20 per cent
improvement in checkout speed worldwide and an 80 per cent
improvement in the customer care department in resolving issues.
Using the technology, Swarovski was also able to identify the
problems associated with slow order processing and has
subsequently witnessed a 30 per cent decrease in wait time.
Neubacher called these improvements “low hanging
fruit” with the next stage involving delving deeper into
the software and getting more internal departments using it. For
example, it can be used to predict load at peak times and arrange
more server space if needed. Also, marketers can access certain
parts of the dashboard to help them plan campaigns based on user
data.
Crucially, Swarovski can now monitor the traffic and transactions
in different countries, and use this information to make informed
decisions about future business strategies and identifying new
markets for future growth.
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