Since its launch earlier this month, the completely new Procurement Services website has been very well received by U-M customers and suppliers. Both groups helped support the development of the new website in a number of key ways throughout the project.
“The new website is extremely easy to use,” said Traci Trimmer, an executive secretary in the dean’s office in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. “Whether it’s actually purchasing materials, looking for a quick answer to a question, or getting detailed information on a specific procurement process, I can find what I need quickly and easily on the site. The new design is also very appealing and I appreciate the different navigation options, including the quick links and pull-down menus.”
The supplier community has also embraced the new website as an improved and more efficient way of conducting business with U-M. “Based on what we’ve heard thus far from our suppliers, the new website appears to be a major hit and will go a long way in making it much easier for them to partner with Procurement Services to meet the many and varied purchasing needs of the university,” Nicole Sleight, a project manager in Procurement Services who led the initiative, said.
The positive reaction is not surprising, given that the customer and supplier communities made critical contributions to the website project and helped ensure its success. “As the new website was being developed, we made a concerted effort to partner with our customers across U-M and members of the supplier community—in a number of different ways—to get their perspective on how the site could be built to make it as easy as possible to do business with us,” Nicole said.
Procurement Services received nearly 700 responses to a survey about its website at the outset of the project and nearly 200 employees at a variety of levels across U-M provided feedback on the new website during a user-testing phase.
“The input we received from our customers and suppliers—whether it was from a survey or user testing—was incredibly helpful, said Nicole. “At the end of the day, we’re here to provide exemplary service to our customers who need to purchase the goods and services they need at the local level to support U-M’s missions of education, research, and patient care as well as our suppliers.”
In addition to a completely new and more user-friendly design, the new website offers users a number of other upgrades, including easier and more intuitive navigation, a centralized customer service ticketing system, enhanced searching capabilities, as well as new and revised content.