One of the many energising aspects of my role is meeting our extremely driven and hugely enthusiastic small business customers. Earlier this month was no exception as I met with Dell’s 2009 Global Small Business Excellence Award winner A Suit That Fits.com – an online maker of bespoke high-quality suits. Co-founders Warren Bennett and David Hathiramani are fantastic examples of young, innovative and passionate small business owners. They took time out of their busy schedules to walk me through the inner workings of their business model, technology innovations and unwavering focus on delivering the best customer experience possible.
For a good hour or two I was taken through the intricacies of correctly measuring a customer looking for the perfect tailored suit. It was fascinating to experience this side of the company, knowing full well what impressive technologies lay behind the scenes. The range of customisation they can offer their customers is quite amazing – over 40 billion possible suit combinations, from picking the type of shirt collar to the colour of lining for your suit. Their unique Style Wizard, which took them over a year to create, narrows billions of combinations of suits within minutes and is truly innovative. As part of the day, I become a tailor/‘Style Adviser’ for A Suit That Fits.com under their expert guidance and very much enjoyed the experience measuring one of our SMB UK journalists who had been invited to the event. It was certainly a little different to my normal day!
With customer service at the forefront of everything they do, I was equally impressed with all the team at A Suit That
Fits.com. You can clearly see the culture of success and customer focus within the business. They continue to grow organically, but at the core of everything they do is the ability to maintain the company’s personality and ensure all team members remain happy and motivated. This is a frequent challenge for small businesses as they expand, but with the founders so keenly aware of this ‘growing pain’, it was great to talk to them both about their plans for the future and how they will use their Dell technology prize to grow. We know SMBs want their IT simplified and this prize fund will have a significant impact on their business as they look to take it to the next level.
Having played the part of tailor for the day, I’m now setting my sights on arming myself with other interesting skills from our SMB customers. I’m sure we’ve sold at least one computer to a prestigious sports car brand haven’t we?
Update: Here’s a YouTube video that summarizes my experience at A Suit That Fits.com:
And if you want to see more, here’s the part 2 video, and lastly, here’s an interview of Warren and David from A Suit That Fits.com: (Please visit the site to view this video)