Large Online Retailer Sees 83% Fall In Incoming Emails Chasing Orders

Marillion is the UK’s largest independent band. Racket Records is Marillion’s own online store and a trailblazer for today’s music industry. At a time when music business pundits shunned the idea of bands bringing all their commercial operations in-house, the business acumen behind Marillion became a self-fulfilling prophecy and proved everyone wrong.

In 2006, forward-thinking Erik Nielsen, Head of Racket Records and , Business Manager for Marillion, had a clear vision of the organisation’s future. Having been one of the first to ask fans to preorder music, 12 months in advance, and essentially creating the first crowdfunded project, he wanted to bring the band’s entire business and workflow management in-houseCustomer benefits at a glance:

• 83% fall in incoming emails chasing orders
• Distribution lead times reduced by up to 90%
• Reduced elapsed time within cash flow, increasing annual revenue
• Enabled easy management of a 90,000-fan contact database
• Increased financial and operational transparency
• Customer satisfaction dramatically improved, which increased the likelihood of repeat sales
• Simplified IT infrastructure – the entire business is now accommodated in one system
• Low capex
• Partnered a longstanding innovative and responsive FuseMetrix team that proactively looks for customers’ challenges
• Technological flexibility that enabled the business to meet its unique goals
• Enabled business growth while maintaining a low headcount
• Increased efficiency of processes across the business
• Accurate real-time reports improved management decision-making
• Facilitated international growth, with direct B2C transactions from around the world
• Provided business intelligence by analysing and reporting on online customer and fan behaviour
• Intuitive interface made it easy to use

The challenge

At the time, the business was ground-breaking, setting new industry goals, but it was running on disparate legacy systems which had become complicated and costly to manage, yet which couldn’t accommodate the new business objectives.

Racket Records’ new infrastructure requirements included:

• Innovative technical know-how to support business change
• Automatic B2C transaction processing across many countries with different tax regimes
• Holistic technology, so transactions and other data didn’t have to be moved from one system to another for processing and storage
• Real-time management information reporting
• Recording studio and tour schedule management
• Manufacturing process management
• Customer relationship management (CRM)
• Financial reporting and forecasting
• Multi-currency e-commerce and e-booking
• An efficient customer service suite
• Stock, warehouse and distribution management.

The solution

Erik’s technology infrastructure options were limited:
“We could have spent £500 on an off-the-shelf system which would only have delivered 40% of what we wanted to achieve, or spent £80,000 on a bespoke solution.

“FuseMetrix delivered 100% of what we needed at a fraction of the cost,” explained Erik.

Accurately analysing the online behaviour of fans has helped to plan more effective promotional activity by removing guesswork.

The results

After FuseMetrix went live, incoming emails querying and chasing orders fell by 83% as the business started to ramp up its efficiency.

Distribution timelines were transformed. The Racket Records team can now ship on the day, or within an hour of a customer placing an order, rather than within two weeks.

Even though FuseMetrix holds a vast amount of data, its intuitive interface enables operators to see small details. It made drilling down to an individual purchase easy – the box office often has to check if somebody has genuinely lost their ticket or not, for example.

“I knew what I wanted to do for the band, but FuseMetrix helped make it happen,” concluded Erik
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