Cleaver Brooks grew business over 20% in four years

Helping businesses run better every day

For nearly 90 years, Cleaver-Brooks has been keeping people warm. A manufacturer and distributor of complete boiler room solutions, Cleaver-Brooks develops hot water and steam generation products aimed at integrating and optimizing the total boiler, burner, controls system to maximize energy efficiency and reliability while minimizing emissions.

In an otherwise declining market, Cleaver-Brooks has grown their business over 20% in the last four years. Despite the fact that most companies have already invested in boiler room solutions for their company, Cleaver-Brooks is still able to continuously grow their market share based on their promises of quality, reliability and world-class customer support.

Where there is success, there is opportunity. By listening to the market and their customer base, Cleaver-Brooks knew they needed to get more tools in place to take their business into the future. With ambitious aftermarket growth goals and a dedication to going the extra mile for customers, Cleaver-Brooks voyaged into eCommerce.

Opening new channels and addressing new markets

Three years before investing in eCommerce, Cleaver-Brooks’ rep network was their sole channel for part sales and estimates. While a reliable source, Cleaver-Brooks recognized that they were only reaching about 25% of the total addressable market and that eCommerce would open new channels and help them reach more prospects. To grow their aftermarket business, beat the competition and meet the needs of a changing buyer, Cleaver-Brooks needed a robust eCommerce platform.

Selecting Episerver B2B Commerce Cloud by Insite

Finding the right eCommerce platform isn’t always an easy task. To narrow their search, Cleaver-Brooks created an RFP and analyzed 12 different eCommerce providers. The providers were measured against a Pugh Matrix created by Cleaver-Brooks’ IT, marketing and sales teams which helped them prioritize based on:

• Implementation Total Cost
• Maintenance/Ongoing Cost
• Implementation Team
• User Experience
• Sales Analytics Capabilities
• Functional Requirements
• 3^rd Party Add-ons Needed
• Implementation Timeline
• CMS Capability
• Additional Sales Volume

After creating their matrix, they applied a weighting system to each category based on pressing needs and “must-haves” within the application. Ultimately, Optimizely B2B Commerce Cloud outweighed other eCommerce platforms and met many of Cleaver-Brooks’ requirements.

The only OEM selling parts through eCommerce

Cleaver-Brooks is currently the only OEM selling parts through an eCommerce platform. When you buy from Cleaver-Brooks, you know that you’re buying a genuine OEM part that will fit your boiler. Customers are guaranteed the quality, performance and reliability they are used to because they’re not buying a third-party knock-off.

Cleaver-Brooks makes this possible by being findable. If somebody has a specific part number or the name of a part, their eCommerce site can facilitate that sale and get the customer’s needs addressed faster than ever before.

After launching their eCommerce site in October 2018, Cleaver-Brooks saw a steady growth of adoption of the site, and an increase in returning customers to the site. Customers can efficiently do their jobs with access to inventory, custom pricing and easy online ordering.

With eCommerce launched, Cleaver-Brooks promises same day delivery to their customers through 3 p.m.

Leveraging the Optimizely platform

Cleaver-Brooks uses built-in B2B functionality within Optimizely to deliver superior customer experiences.

Customers can use “Find a Representative” tools to identify the closest Cleaver-Brooks representative partner.

Utilizing out-of-the-box product detail pages, Cleaver-Brooks gives customers easy ways to quickly filter through product information and make purchases.

In an industry where most of their competitors are hiding it, Cleaver-Brooks is able to provide transparent pricing and real-time availability for their products.