Daniel Vanhemelrijck

With about 2.7 billion people accessing the Internet and over 1.15 billion people using online social media site Facebook, Christine Cranney asked materials handling industry members how they use the Internet to benefit their business.


Daniel Vanhemelrijck, sales and marketing manager for Doosan Industrial Vehicle Europe NV, thinks the company website is "very important" to attract potential new customers.

"Before selecting potential suppliers, a customer consults the web to select three or more (vendors), so it is very important to catch their eyes with a nice site."

The importance of this channel is seen in Doosan Group assigning a team of marketing staff to focus solely on the company website and its continual development.

While companies outside Europe do not necessarily need multilingual websites, Vanhemelrijck says that European companies need to deal with several languages.

"Moreover, European regulations require all documents to be in the local language, so it is more than useful to have multilingual websites," he adds.

One of Europe's leading forklift manufacturers, Jungheinrich AG of Hamburg, launched a new website in Germany last year.

"All the other Jungheinrich countries' [websites will] follow (shortly)," says spokesman Jan Kaulfuhs-Berger. "Some of them are already launched."

He says the new website is "state-of-the-art, easy to handle and reachable for users, mostly in the language of the relevant country and in English".

"Our website has, of course, a strong focus on the sales part, no matter if we are talking about new trucks, logistics solutions, rental service, after-sales service, financial service, used trucks, etc."

Antonio Martínez

Antonio Martínez, the managing director of new rough-terrain forklift manufacturer Bomaq Industries, in Murcia, Spain, thinks the company website is "fundamental to offer the customer the view of your company philosophy".

"Our website is simple, easy to access and does not have any content that is not strictly necessary." Bomaq's goal is to offer the customer a quick and easy system (via its website) to access product information and also a dedicated website for spare parts support and online shopping.

Concerning the languages on a website, Martínez says: "Nowadays, this is not just important, it's essential. If you want your company to be on the world [stage], you have to be prepared for all the languages."

He adds that as his company is new, it's "difficult to dedicate a lot of resource" to maintaining the website, but he is aware that a person fully dedicated to the task needs to be employed.

Fred Märtsoo, managing director of Estonian forklift supplier Laadur, has some catching up to do. He admits that the company's website is old and will be replaced with a new one soon. "[It] is not yet important [for generating sales], but we plan to change it."

Alice Wei

Alice Wei, sales and marketing director of Ningbo Ruyi Joint Stock Co Ltd, says a multilingual company website is "very important" to the Chinese forklift manufacturer. In the company's pipeline is the development of a user-friendly website, which will be used for sales and marketing.

Hyster Company boasts that its newly launched global website will aid in the forklift decision-making process.

"To reach our global customer base, this innovative new website has been produced in 12 languages," says Hyster brand manager Kate Pointeau."The new vibrant design has enabled us to offer one consistent Hyster website maintaining the same brand identity and messaging in every region of the world."

The redesign and development of the Hyster website was based on "thorough research" and is, therefore, customer-focused in its level of content. "The content has been carefully considered to include not just what Hyster wanted to say, but what our customers wanted to see," Pointeau explains.

As comprehensive and up-to-date as Jungheinrich's website is, Kaulfuhs-Berger admits that the company is not expending much resource on social media, focusing instead on a particular social media site - Facebook.

Social media is a group of Internet-based applications that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content. They include Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

A visit to the port equipment maker Konecranes' website demonstrates the company's deep investment in its Internet presence. On the first page of its website are the words 'follow us' and the icons for Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+ and Apple App Store.

"We have moderate activity and visibility in some (social media). Our main objective is to be present in some, to create and communicate interesting information to stakeholders," says Mikael Wegmüller,
vice president, marketing and communications.

He says his company has a state-of-the-art website, as digital marketing "remains a focus for [the company]" and is continually being developed.

"A small, effective and skilled group of people" are allocated the task of maintaining the company's web presence which is "increasingly important in lead generation".

Alice Wei from Ningbo Ruyi says her company does not prioritise social media for internal and external communications, preferring instead to "discuss through email". "It is not important to use social media like Facebook for international sales."

Bomaq's Martínez also thinks social media tools have minimal influence on sales. "It only affects the number of visits [to the company website]. Our customers are not usually users of social networks."

Clark Europe GmbH of Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany launched its official Facebook page in February as part of a global social media initiative of all Clark companies. The Facebook page provides general information and historical background about the company, and the latest news on its business.

Director of sales and marketing Rolf Eiten says: "We consciously made this step to keep all guests and followers permanently updated about the Clark world. It's all about customer proximity, maintaining customer contact and addressing new target groups."

Since the company's relaunch in 2004, Clark has grown rapidly and sees Facebook as a popular and contemporary medium to reach out to even more people, increase brand awareness and enhance its customer relationships while building new relationships with prospective ones.

A mini survey by Forkliftaction.com News revealed that forklift companies regard their company websites as essential for sales, marketing and branding, and less so for information sharing. What are some of the other innovative ways companies are making the Internet work for them?

The CLARKcalc payment calculator app

This month, Clark Material Handling Company of Lexington, Kentucky, US announced the release of a CLARKcalc payment calculator app for both IOS and Android devices.

The app allows Clark sales representatives to calculate monthly payments across a number of different finance options. They can customise lease type, term length, forklift type, mast type and application environment on the fly to accurately calculate monthly payments for customers.

RediTechniX, part of the RediGroup group of specialist materials handling companies, has introduced an online advice portal. It allows its company website visitors to have their automated pallet storage and retrieval systems-related questions answered by an industry expert.

Tony King, RediTechniX commercial manager, says the portal allows anyone to find the information they need by asking questions directly or by reviewing the responses to queries raised by others.

Since 2012, forklift users have been able to call up prices, place orders and look up parts via TVH webshop MyTotalSource, which is available in 20 languages. Instead of installing a special program, customers can just visit the website.

One year on, MyTotalSource was among the winners at the 19th ANAPAT-convention in Madrid, Spain, and received the award 'Innovation in the sector of Maintenance and Aerial Platforms'.

In the past year, 39% of orders for the Belgian parts supplier were processed via MyTotalSource.

Toyota Material Handling USA Inc launched an enhanced website for US-based technician employment opportunities this month and a brand new site for Canadian-based tech jobs in English and French. The websites allow dealers residing in the US and Canada to post open leads for service technicians, and for job seekers to easily find both shop and road technician opportunities.

"Service technicians are in demand and are sometimes difficult to find," says Melinda Beckett-Maines, national marketing manager for Toyota. "Toyota is pleased to provide the framework for employees and employers to find each other with an improved online application form and the opportunity to upload a resume or any document related to the position."