GRAPEVINE, TX. SAF-Holland has greatly enhanced and relaunched its Aftermarket Parts on Demand (POD) Electronic Parts Catalog, rebranded as POD Plus and positioned to be a robust, complete e-commerce solution.
POD Plus now connects directly with the SAF-HOLLAND business system, allowing users in real time to view inventory, system order entry, customer specific pricing, legacy parts cross-references, and product literature. This new capability now provides distributor customers with accurate and up-to-date data, company representatives explained during a media presentation at Heavy Duty Aftermarket Week here.
Carl Mesker, vice president of sales, demonstrated the snappy and intuitive user interface—which now is supported by on-the-fly updates to SAF-Holland’s inventory system—and called it “truly amazing.” The key, he continued, is that POD Plus designers have identified which functions customers truly look for and use, and limited the home screen to six simple buttons.
“There were a couple of rules that we set out, and one of them was that this new system had to be intuitive: If it takes more than 10 seconds to figure it out, you’re not going to put the parts catalog down,” Mesker said. “This enhanced customer experience allows entry-level parts staff along with senior parts veterans like me to easily and quickly identify the SAF-Holland parts needed to help a fleet get its equipment back on the road fast.”
Among the POD Plus enhancements are:
- real time inventory
- real time order entry
- order history (this includes all orders placed online or through CSRs)
- invoice history (this includes all orders placed online or through CSRs)
- customer specific and scale pricing
- serial number search; and
- mobile device compatibility.
"Data shows that e-commerce solutions have grown significantly since the initial launch of POD in 2015," Mesker said. "We recognize this trend, and plan to keep current to ensure we are exceeding customer requirements. This is increasingly important when taking into consideration the work environment expectations of the upcoming digital generation.”
In addition to the enhancements noted above, POD Plus has three significant advantages to assist customers in quickly and accurately identifying the parts they require, explained Bryan Thorwall, aftermarket brand manager.
- SAF-Holland has collected product attributes and provided online shopping filters to be used during navigation. This allows customers to narrow their search based on known product attributes.
- Provides important replacement or obsolete information to our customers, eliminating the need to seek out this information.
- Provides a list of service kits in relation to individual components. For instance, if a customer has found the washer required, he can now easily find the service kit they need to complete the repair properly.
“By launching the enhanced POD Plus site, SAF-Holland has made our distributor partners’ online experience more user friendly, thoroughly informative, and conveniently quick,” said Thorwall.
