News
Monument Design & Sales In The Cloud During The Pandemic
Mid-America Monument Builders Association Newsletter
July, 2020, Quarter IV
(follow up on program from annual meeting in 2018, Oklahoma City)
Monument Design & Sales In The Cloud During The Pandemic
Note to readers: In July of 2018 at our annual MAMBA meeting, Design Mart provided a program on the future of the Cloud in the monument industry.
With the threat of exposure to COVID-19, everyone is looking for ways to continue working and serving families. Many memorialists and families have turned to the Cloud for answers. Design Mart's analytics have shown that monument retailers have nearly doubled the amount of work they are doing from home - designing and selling monuments with the company's two Online Monument Designers.
Both of their Designers are cloud based, which means users can access their work anywhere at any time. Customers (families) are also using the Legacy Designer & Catalogs to design and select monuments from home.
Memorialists do not have to be in front of a PC or CAD program in the office. They are able to work from home or anywhere else with an internet connection to create and customize monuments that can be sent to a customer for approval and exported to any CAD system for stencil cutting. All of a user's work is saved in the Cloud and can be opened and edited at any time.
Virtually any device can be used for either Online Designer including phones, phablets (phone/tablets), iPads, tablets, laptops, and desktops. All major browsers are supported including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. From any web browser users may create a full-color, CAD-ready file. A color JPG image may also be exported and pasted into contracts or emails.
Analytics Tell The Story
Taking all data into consideration, it was clear the industry needed online systems and services during this pandemic. Design Mart was able to pivot and focus on stability and reliability as systems scaled with usage, affording all monument retailers and their customers 99.999% uptime with the same level of quality customer service and tech support as always.
During this pandemic Design Mart has seen more users in the Cloud than ever. These users come back more often than they ever have, and they’re staying longer and working more often than they ever did before. Analytics show that all visitors are becoming more proficient in the use of Design Mart’s systems. That proficiency can be best understood as an evolution of user-type. Users are becoming advanced/master users of Design Mart’s systems and services out of necessity, and they’re staying on board because of convenience and ease of use.
In the graphs below, varying time intervals have been selected to illustrate dramatic increases in online monument design, browsing, and searching during the pandemic. Visits, duration of those visits, pageviews, searches and other actions all saw dramatic increases at some time during March, April, and May.
Design Mart provides helpful videos and a free 30-day trial of their Online Monument Designer & Catalogs at https://designmart.com/online-catalog-and-monument-designer/monument-designer/about-online-monument-designer/ . They will be happy to help you set up your trial and provide tech support and help by phone or online. You may reach Design Mart at d-mart@designmart.com or call them toll-free at (800) 736-7455 if you have any questions or would like a live demo.