TandemSeven

 "We chose TandemSeven because of their experience with design and usability of transactional applications."

Bill Carson, VP of Application Solutions
1-800-Flowers

The Challenge
As 1-800-FLOWERS.COM evolved from a flowers to a multi-brand gift company, the organization experienced a rapid increase in overall order volumes. To meet customer demand, a new universal order entry system across all brands was needed to improve call center productivity. The application needed to handle all channels including catalog, Internet and on-demand shopping. Usability design challenges included reducing training time and employee turnover, increasing order entry speed, and designing an application that can be extended to new brands as needed.

TandemSeven Solution
1-800-FLOWERS.COM partnered with TandemSeven to design, architect and build a high performance, rich client interface for the universal order entry application. TandemSeven was selected based on deep experience in usability and order entry applications, and eCommerce industry expertise.

The team led two parallel tracks. The first track utilized TandemSeven's experience-centered design process to conduct user research, specify requirements, re-engineer multiple call center processes into a unified flow and design the new user interface. The second track leveraged TandemSeven’s technology expertise. The team performed a user interface technology assessment that focused on scalability and speed, client functionality, customization, initial effort and learning curve, and maintenance. State-of-the-art Java UI technologies, including SP and DHTML, Java Server Faces, Struts, Java and Swing Applets, were benchmarked against performance and functionality requirements.

The team developed a prototype to use in one-on-one usability testing, and to demonstrate some of the interface components and techniques. Next, the user interface was architected with Struts and XML for flexibility and high performance. The data-driven user interface accommodates functionality reuse in different contexts, allowing a page to be personalized for various audiences.

The Results
1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Plow and Hearth, The Popcorn Factory and other sub brands now enjoy a streamlined order process that reduces the number of pages and keystrokes required per order. Call center representatives can provide enhanced services to customers while employing cross-selling opportunities. Additionally, customer experience for new and existing customers is improved significantly.