Delivering a Personalized eCommerce Experience
August 8, 2023
Ensuring Caterpillar customers have what they need might be our most important job. So, we’re making a significant investment in eCommerce web, mobile, and Integrated Procurement (IP) channels that will deliver better and more personalized eCommerce shopping experience. The result is a robust integrated digital ecosystem that improves our customers’ productivity and efficiency and delivers business outcomes for our dealers and Caterpillar.
Accelerating eCommerce
It’s not just enough to offer eCommerce tools. We’ve identified three primary customer personas: retail, professional (pro) and integrated buyers, and we’re developing solutions individually tailored to each. Since each segment has unique needs, their customer experience on our platforms is very different.
Retail buyers are customers with one to three pieces of equipment. To give retail customers an easy-to-own experience, we’ve created a new parts and support app called Cat® Central – introduced at CONEXPO 2023. It’s the latest tool for convenient access to genuine Cat® parts and support with access to parts available on Parts.Cat.Com. Cat Central is a great tool for the “do-it-myself” customer. They can easily search, find and order parts on their mobile device. Customers can also see equipment management insights and get personalized customer information, including asset-specific operating, maintenance and repair resources.
Pro buyers transact frequently on parts.cat.com, where they have access to a special control center, giving them a faster and easier purchasing experience in one place. It allows them to access their most frequently used purchasing functions – such as their order history, shopping cart, and pending orders that need approval.
Integrated buyers are large customers who prefer direct eCommerce integration with their internal systems. Cat Integrated Procurement (Cat IP) provides streamlined parts requisitioning, ordering and invoicing through a connection to the Cat® dealer system. We’re updating the platform and making it easier for customers to deploy Cat IP with an eye on scalability, so smaller customers can enjoy the benefits.
Customer Focused and Dealer Centered
For the nearly 100 years we’ve been doing business, Cat dealers have been a competitive advantage – taking care of new customers, strengthening existing relationships, and offering support with value-add services. The Cat dealer’s role in eCommerce remains critical.
Many of our customers enjoy the convenience our eCommerce solutions provide. For example, they might want to see which parts are available or find out exactly how soon they can be delivered. Customers also want to track their order in real time, just as they do their personal online transactions. The global Cat dealer network is committed to providing this type of customer care and beyond.
It's Not New. But It Is the Future.
For decades, we’ve been taking care of our biggest customers with dedicated teams of customer care experts, regular on-site visits, and even strategically placed parts supply warehouses near large jobsites, like mines. Now, through an integrated and scalable digital ecosystem focused on eCommerce and support, we can provide customers of all sizes with a personalized online experience to help customers find and buy the right parts and services for the job.
And we’re reaching each customer in a seamless, intuitive way to provide the support they need in ways they expect. No matter where our customers connect with us in our digital ecosystem, we’ll provide them with a unique experience that makes owning and maintaining Cat equipment easy.
