{"id":445,"date":"2010-07-22T16:45:47","date_gmt":"2010-07-22T20:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/?p=445"},"modified":"2010-07-22T16:45:47","modified_gmt":"2010-07-22T20:45:47","slug":"keep-those-comments-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/2010\/07\/22\/keep-those-comments-coming\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep Those Comments Coming"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Being accountable to customers and responding to their concerns and suggestions is key to any business, which is why I encourage anyone reading this blog to comment on a post or email me.<\/p>\n<p>In the year or so it took to develop our revolutionary new ESP Web platform, for instance, we reviewed hundreds of your suggestions to make sure we delivered a product that would help you improve your business. Recently, we announced even more enhancements to ESP \u2013 and we\u2019re not done yet. <a href=\"http:\/\/support.asicentral.com\/mktg\/mktgasp\/446-819264\/formweb.asp\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"right\" src=\"http:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/ESP1.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The ESP Web platform now features faster searches along with more than 20 other enhancements to help suppliers and distributors, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An advanced product search integrated into its revolutionary, intelligent search engine<\/li>\n<li>The ability to add products to the shopping cart directly from customer presentations<\/li>\n<li>Preferred pricing on numerous screens, including initial product-search results<\/li>\n<li>Even more speed, so searches are faster than ever.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Sam Knox, vice president of Clever Advantage Inc., emailed us with an enthusiastic endorsement that we included in a recent press release, which you can read by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.asicentral.com\/asp\/open\/AboutASI\/pressRoom\/index.aspx?id=5086\" target=\"_blank\">clicking here<\/a>. In short, Sam called the advanced search \u201cawesome.\u201d Thanks, Sam!<\/p>\n<p>This week, I also responded to an email from a less than enthusiastic reader who saw our press release on the ASI Show in Chicago, where we attracted over 4,100 distributors. In that release, we mentioned the team at Harry &amp; David (<em>asi\/59710<\/em>), the well-known consumer brand that selected ASI Chicago to make its inaugural appearance as an industry supplier.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The reader was unhappy we promoted a supplier that sells through a direct retail channel, and I\u2019d like to share my response, below:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cUp to you on picking suppliers, but I wanted to let you know that we have worked carefully with Harry &amp; David and they really understand the concerns you have.\u00a0 For instance, they have created specific products for our industry <\/em><em>\u2013 including a partnership with Leed\u2019s for specific bundling and packaging \u2013 that aren\u2019t being offered direct.\u00a0 So your customers and prospects can\u2019t do a direct compare. And they\u2019ve also been thoughtful about making the \u2018suggested retail\u2019 for distributors no lower than comparable direct pricing, while providing 30 percent+ margins to distributors. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>As I said, I don\u2019t mean to defend particularly, but they really are being thoughtful and methodical and I didn\u2019t think it fair not to let you know.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>If you have any more suggestions on our releases, ESP or anything else, please post a comment or email me <a href=\"mailto:tim.andrews@asicentral.com\">here<\/a> and I\u2019ll respond as best I can. I\u2019m also on <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/Tim_Andrews_ASI\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/timothymandrews\" target=\"_blank\">LinkedIn<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/timasitv\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Being accountable to customers and responding to their concerns and suggestions is key to any business, which is why I encourage anyone reading this blog to comment on a post or email me. In the year or so it took to develop our revolutionary new ESP Web platform, for instance, we reviewed hundreds of your [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-members","category-news-about-asi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":453,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions\/453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}