Cheese and Yogurt Ingredient Supplier Finds Success with BigCommerce and Crestwood

Overview

Dairy Connection, Inc. has proudly served as an ingredient supplier to specialty, farmstead and small-to-midsize cheese and fermented-milk manufacturers nationwide since 1999. Since then, the company has built a reputation that matches their passion for the industry. 

Based in Madison, Wisconsin, the company has a dozen dedicated employees and considers their customers ‘the best in the business.’ Products listed in their online catalog include a wide variety of cultures, coagulants, flavor enzymes and other ingredients needed to make cheese, yogurt and fermented milks. Hundreds of items are stock products for which no minimum quantities or lead times apply. 

If clients are looking for something in particular that is not in the Dairy Connection catalog, technical staff works to identify or create custom culture blends that best fit their needs. Staff can also help troubleshoot technical issues that creamery customers may be experiencing.

The Challenge

While the business has steadily grown over the years, the technology to support it was not enabling modern eCommerce.  Katie Phillips, Compliance & Operations Manager, explains: “Our challenge was that we had a legacy website that didn’t connect to our economic environment, so it had products on there, but orders were manually entered.”

The quantities were not visible and, when people would place an order online, staff would have to manually enter it into our ERP system. This led to frequent user entry errors. Customer service staff printed off orders from the website and then manually entered them into the system. 

For the small, 12 person company, whose primary focus is distribution, it was essential that they automate ordering, inventory and delivery. 

Phillips attended the Acumatica summit, where they announced their partnership with BigCommerce as a new integration. She discovered Crestwood Associates was an award-winning Acumatica partner and reached out for references. “It was cool to be able to just talk to actual users to understand what the software was like and what it was like to work with Crestwood on an integration,” says Phillips.  

The Software and Implementation

BigCommerce’s mission is to help merchants sell more at every stage of growth, from small startups, to mid-market businesses, to large enterprises. As a leading open SaaS solution, BigCommerce empowers merchants to build, innovate and grow their businesses online. 

Crestwood Associates deployed eCommerce experts to help Dairy Connection, Inc. and provide practical, hands-on training in BigCommerce. Phillips and her team very quickly learned how to use and maximize the tool. “Our go-live went super smooth! I was just waiting for something bad to happen, or something that we missed, but nothing bad happened,” she said.

The Solution

Integrating BigCommerce with Dairy Connection, Inc.’s ERP system made an immediate impact on the customer service team. The previously labor-intensive, manual ordering process became automated, saving hours of time and ensuring accuracy. This in turn increased RevOps. 

Because the business ships perishable products, it is essential for items to arrive within two days. Phillips says, “To arrive by Friday means Monday through Wednesday are our biggest shipping days, and we were running out of time during those days to process all of our orders before we added BigCommerce.” 

The new system also alleviated the need to hire an extra person who would not have enough work once shipping is executed. The existing team doesn’t have to rush to close orders and has more time to deliver ideas and solutions to their customers, as well. Phone conversations are a big part of the Dairy Connection Inc. customer service model, and now the team can spend the time their customers deserve. 

Further, Dairy Connection, Inc. noted a deciding factor in selecting BigCommerce didn’t have the upfront costs that some systems do, and instead has a manageable monthly price point. BigCommerce also did not require a developer, so the team can execute everything in-house.

Phillips is happy to recommend Crestwood Associates to other businesses.  “What I find really valuable about Crestwood is their knowledge base,”she said. “Even though I like to do a lot myself, I love having them as a resource. I never would have found Acumatica probably without them, so I will be forever grateful for their guidance.”

About Crestwood

Crestwood Associates is more than ERP. We bring current technologies – such as modern ERP systems like Acumatica and Microsoft Dynamics, along with cloud and business services – all while “Doing the Right Thing” by our clients. Living by this motto helps us to lead the way to change the widespread failure of ERP implementations over the past 30 years. 

With our modern methodology, over 20 years of experience, and expert, certified staff of business consultants, we see this as a chance to pave the way to achieve a 100% client success rate. How? Crestwood is committed to our clients, not software vendors, and, in a larger sense, we want the people who work with us to enjoy technology and enable them to enhance their own lives.