Whether recycling or trading precious metals, myheraeus.com makes the process as easy, straightforward and simple as online shopping. “Our goal was to create a platform that is so good and so intuitive that our customers would want to use it because it makes their daily work easier,” explains André Christl, president of Heraeus Precious Metals at the Hanau-based technology group. “93 percent customer satisfaction and a daily rising number of users speak for themselves.” Plus, using myheraeus.com is self-explanatory, so no manual is needed.
It took 18 months to go from the first scribbled idea to a customer pilot project. During this time, a team of up to 35 specialists from Recycling, Trading, Customer Service and Marketing analyzed, streamlined and digitally mapped the complex procurement and recycling processes. The key to success: the consistent and uncompromising focus on customers. “We first asked the customers what they wanted and then built the platform.” Throughout the development phase, the experts repeatedly gathered and processed customer feedback. The result is a clear, user-friendly platform. The complexity of processes is resolved digitally in the background so never affects the customer. A typical customer runs a notable number of parallel jobs with Heraeus, which require a huge amount of paper with the traditional system. With myheraeus.com, they don’t even need a single piece of paper. Previous orders serve as a template for new ones, order details are clearly depicted, and all transactions can be viewed at any time. Information about the status of precious metals pool accounts can also be accessed in real time, and current news about market developments rounds out the offering. The complex recycling process is streamlined to seven standard steps, and the current status of an order is available at any time. If action is needed or important information becomes available, myheraeus.com informs the customer with a comfortable and proactive email notification, so the customer knows the current status of an order even if not logged in.
The myheraeus.com online platform is available to procurement customers worldwide and is currently available to recycling customers in Germany. It supplements existing channels for Heraeus customers. Personalized service is still available by telephone, by email or on site. An additional option is directly connecting the customer’s system with the Heraeus system to further increase efficiency.
Each year at the end of November, Heraeus presents its in-house Innovation Award in various categories for outstanding projects that are particularly significant for the company. In 2018, the Innovation Award in the category of Digital Transformation goes to the team working on myheraeus.com. The jury’s conclusion: “Myheraeus.com has the potential to change the industrial precious metals business.”