Pella Corporation is an innovative leader in creating a better view for homes and businesses by designing, testing, manufacturing, and installing quality windows and doors for new construction, remodeling, and replacement applications. A family-owned company, Pella has an 88-year history of innovation and, today, is the second-largest manufacturer in the country of windows and doors, including patio, entry, and storm doors. The company has 10 manufacturing facilities in United States and window and door showrooms across the United States and Canada.

In-home consultations are an important part of Pella’s sales process. Several years ago, the company launched an online appointment scheduling tool to improve customer convenience. While the functionality worked well, the company wanted to increase online conversion rates and decrease the number of incomplete, online appointment schedules. It also wanted to give its business analysts and other line-of-business personnel the ability to update the scheduling tool and interface quickly, without needing IT team intervention and recoding, to better capitalize on opportunities and personalize the interface for specific markets. Pella also looked to reduce IT complexity by selecting a system that integrated easily with its Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 enterprise applications.

Pella, which has a large Oracle footprint, selected Oracle WebCenter Sites as the foundation for its new, real-time appointment scheduling application. It used the solution to re-engineer the scheduling process and the information required to set up an appointment. Just a few months after launch, it is seeing improvement in the number of appointments booked online and experiencing fewer abandoned appointments during the scheduling process. As important, Pella can now quickly and easily make changes to images, video, and content displayed on the scheduling tool interface, delivering greater business agility. Previously, such changes required a developer and weeks of coding and testing. Today, a member of Pella’s business analyst team can complete the changes in hours. This capability enables Pella to personalize the Web experience for customers. For example, it can display different products or images for clients in different regions.

The solution is also highly scalable. Pella is using Oracle WebCenter Sites for appointment scheduling now and plans to migrate Pella.com, its configurator tool, and dealer microsites onto the platform. Further, Pella plans to leverage the solution to optimize mobile devices.

“Moving ahead, we expect to extensively leverage Oracle WebCenter Sites to gain greater flexibility in updating the Web experience, thanks to the ability to make updates quickly without developer resources. Segmentation and targeting capabilities will allow us to create a more personalized experience across both traditional and mobile platforms,” said Teri Lancaster, IT manager, customer experience applications, Pella Corporation.