INTRODUCING OUR EXPERIENCE CLOUD
Making lighting project management easy and convenient
Samantha Thomas & James Ewing | July 21, ‘22 | 3.5 minute read
In last month’s newsletter, we shed light on 3 ways we are building a better lighting experience. One of the biggest ways we are doing this right now is through our new online platform, The Experience, which gives our customers access to all the information and communication they need, whenever they need it.
Today we are going to dive deeper into The Experience and what it means for our customers and the lighting industry, but before we do, we want to give you the full scope of what we’ve been working on so you have a better idea of how everything fits together. As the saying goes, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” and each piece is of equal importance. Towards that end, we’ve been working away at three big puzzle pieces:
Creating a more transparent and streamlined lighting process,
Implementing technologies that enable more effective communication and faster, better service (e.g. Experience Cloud, which we’ll discuss today), and
Having keen foresight and relentless commitment to improvement, especially in the face of challenge and uncertainty.
Each of these pieces deserves its own blog post, and today we’re starting with the tech piece.
As we mentioned in last month’s newsletter, we’ve learned a lot from working in the lighting industry for a decade. More than anything, though, it’s opened our eyes to just how in need of an upgrade the lighting industry actually is. From the way we coordinate and communicate lighting to the expectations we have about how we should treat each other throughout the process, lighting is mostly inefficient, opaque, and has a tendency to bring the worst out in people. We believe that software is a key ingredient in helping fix this. By having everyone playing from the same sheet of music, we can avoid many of the frustrating circumstances that give lighting a bad rap. That’s why we built The Experience.
So, what is the Experience? In a nutshell, The Experience is an online portal that centralizes project data and communication, giving you access to critical information you need about your project, whenever you need it. Think of it as your personal lighting project management system that gives you a top down, holistic view of where your project stands at any given point in time. From project details, timelines, key contacts and correspondence, to the status of sales orders, shipments, billings, and cases. This information gives you the coveted bird’s eye view of your entire BOM - a perspective that is extremely difficult to maintain when you have documents and spreadsheets buried in emails, and a perspective that is crucial to managing projects well.
If this sounds like a lot of information, it is. And it’s all aggregated neatly and chronologically in one place so you can access it easily, comprehensively, and conveniently. Say goodbye to calling or emailing an unreasonable number of people to understand where the different pieces of your project stand. Say hello to transparency, continuity, and self-sufficiency. The Experience is like a DIY toolkit for lighting project management.
The features above are part of our Experience Basic, and we will continue to roll out updates/improvements in perpetuity. For example, our roadmap includes things like a convenient “order more” button to make those “I need 5 more” follow-on orders simple for everyone. We also have a beefier version on the horizon: Experience Plus - built for serious clients with serious needs. While Experience Basic gives access to foundational project details, Experience Plus layers in additional features and functionality for those that prefer to go above and beyond, like quotes, price books, inventory management, and dashboard reports that enable purchasing programs and account analytics we’ve never seen offered by a lighting supplier.
Through The Experience, our intention is to create a frictionless, productive environment that allows us to work with our clients in a more efficient way, saving everyone money, time and much of the frustration that plagues the lighting industry. We know that using new software can be intimidating at first, but we’ve built The Experience in such a way that is intuitive to navigate and user friendly. With a little time and patience, you’ll be using it as easily as you use - or used to use - your email. (What’s email again?)
While Experience Plus is under construction, we’ll keep you posted on its development. In the meantime, reach out to us about how Experience Basic might serve you and your business. And, as always, ping us with any questions or ideas you might have about anything else we can do to make your lighting experience an exceptional one.