Stakeholder Research: Preliminary Feedback Analysis

Executive Summary

20 stakeholders provided preliminary website feedback in response to an IT request for improvement suggestions. This feedback collection preceded the formal research initiatives (live call interviews, written feedback surveys, and MoSCoW prioritization exercises). Responses came primarily from customer service, sales, and operations roles across US, UK, Mexico, Poland, and China markets.

Three problem areas dominate the feedback: search dysfunction appears in 8 of 20 responses, customer portal absence appears in 7 responses, and size chart usability problems appear in 6 responses. These three issues constitute the core complaint cluster, with search and portal matching patterns that persisted through later research phases.

The preliminary feedback captures frustration without business case quantification. Stakeholders describe problems (search doesn’t work, customers can’t track orders, size charts scroll poorly) but don’t quantify frequency, revenue impact, or ticket volume. Later research phases added this missing layer through structured interviews and prioritization exercises.

Participant Overview

20 team members provided preliminary feedback. Of these, many later participated in formal research phases:

Participants Who Later Completed Live Call Interviews

Participants Who Later Completed Written Feedback Surveys

Participants Invited to Written Feedback (Not Received in Time)

Participants in Preliminary Feedback Only

The following participants provided preliminary feedback but were not included in later formal research phases:

Note: This preliminary feedback collection served as an initial intake mechanism before formal research design. The overlap between preliminary respondents and later research participants allowed validation of problem patterns across research phases.

Search Functionality Failures

Amber McGrael (Customer Service, US) reports parts don’t pull up in search, forcing manual navigation through sidebar menu. Adam Cato (MOCAP Sales, US) provides specific example: searching RC5025MB returns entire RC series page instead of specific part. Matt Hull (MOCAP Sales, US) states search “does not currently fully operate” with screenshot evidence showing search returning unrelated products. Marta Wojszczyk (Sales, UK) requests “better search bar, perhaps a little tool that customer can type in and find the required part.”

The search complaints describe systematic failure, not edge cases. Stakeholders don’t say “search sometimes fails” or “search struggles with certain formats.” They say search doesn’t work. Amber: “a lot of parts do not pull up.” Matt: “does not currently fully operate.” The language indicates complete breakdown, not performance degradation.

Taber Stone (Customer Service, US) identifies mobile-specific gap: no search bar exists on mobile devices despite customer complaints. This represents not broken functionality but missing functionality, suggesting responsive design failures beyond search algorithm problems.

IT responses indicate awareness without resolution. When Adam reports search issues, IT asks for more details about material specs visibility (separate issue). When Matt shows search failures, IT includes screenshots but no explanation of root cause or fix timeline. The preliminary feedback establishes search as known problem without assigned owner or remediation plan.

Customer Portal Absence

Kate Parish (Customer Service Manager, US) lists portal first in her ideas: “Ability to ship on UPS/FedEx account number, Tracking information emailed to customer/easily accessed on web (we get a ton of emails/calls for this).” Matt Hull (MOCAP Sales, US) describes competitor portals: “includes their order history, previous pricing and previous quantities. They also have a distributor option.” Michael Wester (Director of Global Marketing, US) expands scope: “not just for webstore customers but also ‘office’ customers” with ability to see active pricing, track orders, view order status and history, place orders for anything on their spec card.

Jim Boehm (Beckett Division Sales Manager, US) connects portal to operational urgency: “If a customer needs something shipped out same day, they have to place a hard copy PO and we have to wait for CS to process and send to the factory. All that takes time.” The portal request here stems from speed requirements, not general convenience. Same-day shipping depends on eliminating manual processing bottleneck.

Debbie Gerlach (Customer Service, US) describes symptom rather than root cause: “SO many emails” about tax certificate processing. The underlying problem: no customer self-service capability. Every tax certificate requires manual CS intervention because portal doesn’t exist to handle submission and Sage integration.

Kit Villmer (Customer Service, US) reports tracking number confusion: “Can there be a way that tracking numbers are sent directly to the customer for web orders?” IT responds tracking emails already send but may land in spam. Sharon Read (Customer Service, UK) reports customers unable to download delivery notes and tax invoices. These tracking problems indicate not portal absence but basic order confirmation system failures. They represent lower-tier dysfunction than the strategic portal need Matt and Michael describe.

Size Chart Usability Problems

Matt Hull (MOCAP Sales, US) identifies frozen header need: “I have had some customers comment on how our dimensional size charts A,B,C,D,E,F below, cannot be seen when you scroll down the size chart. This perhaps needs to be reoccurring after every 10-12 rows.” Provides Caplug competitor example showing sticky headers that remain visible during scroll. Linda Yang (Sales Director China, China) requests same fix: “When scrolling down the page, the header of the product’s size specifications is not fixed. As a result, customers may not know which specifications these sizes correspond to.”

Michael Wester (Director of Global Marketing, US) requests row highlighting: “Rows highlight when mousing over… gives clear indication of which row user is in. (See Fastenal).” Dalton Schrumpf (MOCAP Sales, US) suggests pagination: “I like the idea of having pages to click through for some of our larger series pages. For example the RVCs could have 3-4 pages that the user can click through so the column labels are more visible on the medium to larger sizes.”

Linda Yang requests row color change when selected: “In the size Chart, when a particular model is selected, the color of that row will be different from the others to facilitate viewing.” Provides competitor example showing highlighted selection state.

Michael Wester adds tooltip request: “Ability to add a tooltip next to column names in the size chart (with translations) so that when we scroll over a given column it will explain what the column means.” The translation parenthetical suggests international usage where column meaning isn’t obvious across languages.

Size chart complaints cluster around scanability problems: users lose context when scrolling (frozen headers), lose track of which row they’re examining (highlighting), face overwhelming data density (pagination), don’t understand column meanings (tooltips). The problems compound. Without frozen headers, users scroll and forget what columns represent. Without highlighting, they lose their place when scanning rows. Without tooltips, international users guess at technical specifications.

Product Image Accuracy

Jim Boehm (Beckett Division Sales Manager, US) leads with configuration-specific images: “I think it would be very helpful to the customer to be able to see an image of exactly the correct configuration of the part they are ordering. For example, if they choose a red SQT part, the image should show a red SQT. Same for every item we sell.” Art department responds this project requires significant resources and has been pending for years.

Shane Flottmann (Art Director, US) echoes: “my main recommendation for the new site is that we develop a plan to get the correct images showing in the shopping cart, so that the customer at least has a good depiction of the colors and proportions.” The shopping cart specificity suggests thumbnails display wrong products or wrong configurations at checkout.

Jim Boehm provides evidence of outdated images: blow molded tube page shows inner/outer color combinations MOCAP hasn’t offered since 2016. Beckett needs updated images across multiple series: RTL’s, SP’s, MB’s, GPP’s, GCL’s, SBX’s, SF’s. Art responds already aware and adding as advised.

Linda Yang (Sales Director China, China) reports customer preference: “Per the customers feedback, they prefer actual product photos instead of rendering images (modeling graph?). This looks more like something for technicians and isn’t very user-friendly.” References Caplugs competitor using actual product photography. Later asks to ignore this comment, suggesting internal discussion about resource feasibility.

Matt Hull (MOCAP Sales, US) references industry imagery: shows Caplugs industry-specific application photos (automotive, medical, aviation, hydraulics). Art responds: “these examples are all stock images, which is something we can do, but if we want to speak to our products in specific industries better, we need to know what those applications are and have access to the resources to capture the images. I have asked the sales team for a long time for these examples and references.”

Image problems split into two categories: configuration accuracy (wrong color/size shown) and image quality/type (renderings vs photos, stock vs application-specific). Configuration accuracy represents broken functionality with direct ordering consequences. Quality/type represents strategic positioning question about how to present products. Jim and Shane prioritize configuration accuracy. Linda and Matt explore quality improvements. Art’s responses indicate configuration accuracy blocked by resource constraints, quality improvements blocked by sales team not providing application examples.

Checkout Process Friction

Debbie Gerlach (Customer Service, US) describes stuck customers: “One of the things I see most is customers trying to update credit card or shipping address while in the cart placing the order. Even though it looks like you can edit it, it won’t let you. You must back out of the cart and then add or change. Customers get stuck on this.” IT responds checkout allows shipping address specification, suggesting client error. Debbie’s phrasing (“even though it looks like you can edit it”) indicates UI misleads users into thinking edits work inline.

Kit Villmer (Customer Service, US) reports address change requests: “We get a lot of phone calls/chats/emails about updating addresses for web orders.” Requests additional confirmation step for shipping location and method. IT responds same as Debbie issue: checkout has address specification, looks like clients miss it.

Ross Talbot (Customer Service, UK) reports crashes: “we’ve been getting issues where customers have tried to order online and when it comes to checking-out it tends to crash on them.” No IT response. This represents not usability problem but technical failure.

Kate Parish (Customer Service Manager, US) requests return flow: “Return request that agrees to the $50 restocking fee.” Clarifies wants Amazon-style order detail page with return request options and fee approval, eliminating email back-and-forth. Michael may not want this feature but Kate finds it helpful given high volume of “wrong size” returns from customers who didn’t measure correctly.

Lety Cantu (Sales, Mexico) requests quantity calculator: “In put QUANTITY and system gives you quotation with all you need, even considering pieces per packing.” Describes forcing customers to calculate packaging multiples manually. IT schedules call to understand better. This represents not checkout friction but quoting/calculator missing functionality.

Checkout complaints describe three failure types: misleading UI (looks editable but isn’t), missing confirmation steps (address changes happen accidentally), technical crashes (checkout breaks entirely). Debbie and Kit experience operational burden from misleading UI. Ross reports technical failure. Kate requests feature addition to reduce CS workload.

International Operations Challenges

Barbara Gonet (Sales Support, UK) requests shipping origin transparency: “Maybe there should also be information on where the shipping is from, customers call to ask why the delivery costs are so high and only then do I inform them that the warehouses are in the UK (this will soon change - warehouses in Poland).” IT confirms working on Poland warehouse implementation.

Sharon Read (Customer Service, UK) reports download failures: “Many customers are unable to download their delivery notes and Tax Invoices.” IT confirms UK tracking number visibility is ongoing issue being worked on by UK team.

Linda Yang (Sales Director China, China) provides 11-point detailed feedback, most comprehensive in preliminary responses. Requests navigation bar optimization with product series instead of just “Home” button, references Essentra/Poppelmann/DBI/Caplugs competitors. Requests removing frames for spacious layout. Requests homepage sliders showing main products. Requests actual product photos over renderings. Requests row highlighting in size charts. Requests sticky navigation on scroll. Requests fixed size chart headers. Requests translation fix from “都” to “公制 公制/英制 英制” (metric/both/imperial). Requests related products with images not single series. Requests “new products” section on homepage to show continuous development (BNCD, RFC examples).

Linda’s volume and specificity indicate either: China market faces more problems than other regions, Linda has more time/interest to document thoroughly, or China website localization created additional failure modes. Her focus on competitor benchmarking (cites four competitors by name with URLs) suggests active competitive analysis driving feedback.

Lety Cantu (Sales, Mexico) requests brand navigation clarity: “If you are still going to have separated WEB PAGES for BECKET, CLEARTECH and MOCAP. Put the reference at the beginning of the page, to make customer the option to select.” Describes customers not knowing logos at page bottom link to other brands. IT schedules call to understand better.

Marta Wojszczyk (Sales, UK) reports Cleartec Packaging webstore awareness problem: “the main one is not being aware about having the Cleartec Packaging webstore. If we could advertise it more on MOCAP store I would highly appreciate it.” Stock levels and lead times inaccurate for majority of parts. PC and phone versions confusing and different, creating problems when customers call for ordering help.

International complaints cluster around: shipping cost transparency (Barbara), order documentation access (Sharon UK), comprehensive UX problems (Linda China), multi-brand navigation confusion (Lety Mexico, Marta UK), data accuracy (Marta UK). The pattern: US stakeholders report functional breakdowns (search, portal, checkout), international stakeholders report those same problems plus regional failures (documentation downloads, translations, warehouse visibility, brand confusion).

Tax and Documentation Issues

Debbie Gerlach (Customer Service, US): “We need a better way of adding a tax certificate on their Web account and it pulling to Sage. SO many emails on this.” The Sage integration point indicates system architecture problem, not just upload UX problem.

Jim Boehm (Beckett Division Sales Manager, US): “It would be great to make it easier for customers to upload their tax exemption certificate. It is kind of hidden and confusing.” Describes usability problem (hidden/confusing) rather than Debbie’s system integration problem.

Kate Parish (Customer Service Manager, US): “Ability to select if they need a C of C/USMCA/COO, etc with shipment.” Lists Certificate of Conformance, USMCA certificate, Certificate of Origin. Wants customers to request these at order time rather than contacting CS after. IT provides definitions of each certificate type but no implementation response.

Sharon Read (Customer Service, UK) reports customers unable to download delivery notes and tax invoices, requiring email requests to CS. IT confirms ongoing UK issue.

Tax problems split between: upload process (Jim finds it hidden, Debbie experiences high email volume), system integration (Debbie needs Sage connection), documentation delivery (Sharon’s UK customers can’t download), proactive selection (Kate wants order-time requests). Upload and integration represent broken existing functionality. Documentation delivery represents regional technical failure. Proactive selection represents missing feature to prevent downstream CS tickets.

Shipping and Carrier Account Features

Kate Parish (Customer Service Manager, US), Debbie Gerlach (Customer Service, US), Jim Boehm (Beckett Division Sales Manager, US), and Michael Wester (Director of Global Marketing, US) all request customer ability to use own UPS/FedEx account numbers. Kate mentions getting “a ton of emails/calls” for tracking information, wants tracking emailed to customer or easily web-accessible.

Kit Villmer (Customer Service, US) reports tracking number confusion, wants direct customer delivery. IT responds tracking emails already send but might land in spam, shifting from system problem to email deliverability problem.

The carrier account request appears in four responses with identical language: “ability to use their own UPS/FedEx account number” or minor variations. Either stakeholders coordinated feedback, copied from common source, or this represents such obvious gap that all state it identically. No IT response to carrier account requests suggests larger implementation barrier than simple feature addition.

Application Advisor and Related Products

Matt Hull (MOCAP Sales, US): “Application Advisor: This has been in need of updating for a long time. MOCAP sales has created the attached application advisors, which were supposed to be added to the site a long time ago. The chart below is from 2 MOCAP catalogs ago…..in galaxy far, far, away.” Shows outdated application advisor still live on site with markets served and molding processes lists.

Matt Hull also: “Related products: I’m not sure how this is generated, but the parts do not typically correlate.” Provides examples showing unrelated products appearing as recommendations.

Michael Wester (Director of Global Marketing, US): “Application Advisor (using AI)” listed in his improvements. Separate from Matt’s complaint about updating existing static content, Michael thinks about AI-powered interactive advisor.

Adam Cato (MOCAP Sales, US): “The thing I get the most questions about on our website is material specs which I know are on the page at the bottom so I have to guide them down to them.” IT responds asking for clarification. Adam explains: “Currently at the bottom of our website under the products heading about halfway down the chart, is a sheet that is our material specs. I have people ask questions quite often that are answered from this sheet and then when I point out where that sheet is, they say they have never seen it.”

Application advisor complaints describe abandonment: sales created new content for site but it was never implemented, site still shows two-catalogs-old information. Related products algorithm generates nonsensical recommendations. Material specs exist but customers can’t find them despite answering common questions. These represent not functional failures but content management and information architecture failures.

Brand and Navigation Confusion

Lety Cantu (Sales, Mexico): “If you are still going to have separated WEB PAGES for BECKET, CLEARTECH and MOCAP. Put the reference at the beginning of the page, to make customer the option to select. Maybe you can put a legend saying: If your looking for BECKET or CLEARTEC packaging products Click here. And visceversa … If your looking for Mocap PLUGS and GRIPS Click here. If I do not tell them that logos at the end of the page will direct them to BECKET and CLEARTEC.” IT schedules call to understand better.

Marta Wojszczyk (Sales, UK): “the main one is not being aware about having the Cleartec Packaging webstore. If we could advertise it more on MOCAP store I would highly appreciate it.”

Linda Yang (Sales Director China, China): requests navigation bar showing product series instead of just “Home” option, references four competitor examples.

Dave Koester (Cleartec Division Sales Manager, US) (in IT notes): wants “EXTREMELY user friendly” Cleartec experience where customers “build their tube” from scratch: shape, diameter, length, style (extruded PETG or rolled PET), closure. Asks about AI enabling customers to add own artwork and see preview or add contents and see AI visualization. IT schedules call, summarizes his vision for guided tube builder with visual AI previews and dynamic thumbnails matching selections.

Brand confusion operates at three levels: cross-brand navigation (Lety and Marta describe customers not knowing other brands exist or how to find them), within-brand navigation (Linda wants series-based navigation not single Home button), product configuration (Dave wants step-by-step tube building). The multi-brand structure creates fundamental navigation problem that simple fixes (logos at top vs bottom) don’t resolve.

Strategic Feature Requests

Jakub Madura (Sales, Poland) provides extensive enhancement list for professional appearance: News/Trade Shows tab for company updates, Industry Impact section highlighting company contributions, social media links currently missing, introduction video and timeline on homepage, Recruitment section for job opportunities, informational pop-ups for concepts like EORI, certificates and documents tab, FAQ section for common queries. Also requests custom dimension configurator: customer selects series, enters required dimensions and quantity in pop-up form, sees price estimate, provides application information, sends requirement to specialist who determines feasibility and responds with offer/samples or alternative recommendation.

Matt Hull (MOCAP Sales, US) requests eCatalog: “this is not just a PDF, but is interactive and allows for customer to go right to item in the store” with Essentra example. Requests expanding rows in size charts: “instead of taking the user to another page (webstore), the row simply expands to show all the information, pricing, etc.” with Essentra example. Requests quick order sheet citing Essentra feature. Requests better graphics and visuals with industry application photos, though Art responds needs sales team to provide application examples. Acknowledges positive customer feedback: “we have always received a lot of positive feedback from our customers on how our web-site functions, and its user friendly features.”

Michael Wester (Director of Global Marketing, US) requests: prints/drawings for each standard part, application/markets served pages, eCatalog (matching Matt’s request), expanding rows (matching Matt), big visual buttons for color selections (cites Caplugs), frozen headers on size chart scroll.

Linda Yang (Sales Director China, China) requests: homepage sliders with main products (references Poppelmann), recommend related product series with images not just single series, show new products on homepage (BNCD, RFC examples) to demonstrate continuous development, simplify online purchasing process.

Strategic requests split between content additions (news, recruitment, industry pages, FAQs) and advanced functionality (custom configurators, interactive eCatalog, AI visualization). Content additions relatively straightforward. Advanced functionality requires significant development investment. Jakub and Linda think about marketing and positioning. Matt and Michael think about conversion optimization and competitive parity.

Quick Wins Identified

Taber Stone (Customer Service, US): mobile search bar missing. Simple addition, clear gap.

Michael Wester (Director of Global Marketing, US): frozen headers on size chart scroll. Competitor examples show implementation. Multiple stakeholders request.

Michael Wester: row highlighting on mouseover. Fastenal reference. Basic interaction design improvement.

Linda Yang (Sales Director China, China): translation fix from “都” to “公制 公制/英制 英制” for metric/both/imperial toggle. Simple text change.

Adam Cato (MOCAP Sales, US): material specs findability. Content exists, needs better placement or visibility.

These represent implementation-ready improvements with clear scope, competitor examples, and no apparent technical blockers. Frozen headers appears in Matt Hull and Linda Yang feedback too. Row highlighting in Linda Yang feedback. Translation fix specific to China site. Material specs visibility affects Adam’s support workflow directly. None require architecture changes, legacy system integration, or cross-department coordination.

Role-Based Patterns

Customer service (Kit Villmer, Sharon Read, Debbie Gerlach, Kate Parish, Taber Stone, Amber McGrael, Ross Talbot) describe operational burden from missing features. Tracking requests, tax certificate emails, return processing, address changes all generate CS tickets. Their feedback itemizes current pain with frequency indicators: “a lot of phone calls/chats/emails,” “SO many emails,” “we get a ton of emails/calls.” They experience consequences of broken systems daily.

Sales and sales support (Matt Hull, Jim Boehm, Lety Cantu, Dave Koester, Adam Cato, Dalton Schrumpf, Marta Wojszczyk, Barbara Gonet, Jakub Madura) think about conversion blockers and competitive positioning. Matt benchmarks competitors extensively. Jim connects portal to same-day shipping speed. Dave envisions AI-powered tube builder. They see broken systems as lost revenue.

Leadership and marketing (Michael Wester, Linda Yang) provide strategic perspective on competitive positioning and market-specific needs. Michael wants visual improvements matching Caplugs and expanding rows matching Essentra. Linda provides comprehensive China market feedback with extensive competitor benchmarking.

Creative (Shane Flottmann) identifies specific visual and image accuracy issues. Shane wants correct cart images showing actual product configurations.

Role patterns match later research: CS quantifies operational burden, sales frames competitive impact, international reports regional failures, leadership provides strategic context. The preliminary feedback establishes these patterns before formal research adds business case quantification.

IT Response Patterns

IT responds to some feedback, not others. Responses fall into three categories: explanations (checkout has address specification, tracking emails send but might spam), acknowledgments with follow-up (scheduled calls with Lety Cantu and Dave Koester), confirmations of known issues (UK tracking visibility ongoing, Poland warehouse implementation in progress).

IT doesn’t respond to: customer portal requests (7 stakeholders), carrier account number requests (4 stakeholders), size chart usability improvements (6 stakeholders), image accuracy problems (3 stakeholders), application advisor updates (2 stakeholders). These non-responses might indicate: already on roadmap (no need to confirm), resource constraints (can’t commit), architectural complexity (needs investigation), or simply response time/capacity limits.

Art department provides two detailed responses to image feedback: explains stock images possible but need sales team application examples, explains configuration-specific images require significant resources and have been pending years. Art responses more substantive than IT responses, suggesting cross-functional ownership complexity.

The preliminary feedback serves as intake mechanism, not dialog. IT collects problems but rarely provides resolution timeline, assigns ownership, or explains implementation barriers. This matches preliminary nature: gathering input before prioritization and planning.

Preliminary vs Later Research

Preliminary feedback identifies problems without quantification. Matt says search doesn’t work. Later research established: search returns zero results for valid part numbers, affects vast majority of customers. Jim says portal would help same-day shipping. Later research established: manual order processing creates significant operational burden across the organization.

Preliminary feedback comes from self-selected respondents. IT asked for input. 20 people responded with varying detail levels (Jakub and Linda write extensively, Taber and Shane write briefly). Later written feedback surveyed 18 stakeholders systematically with guided questions. Later live calls interviewed 12 stakeholders with structured protocols.

Preliminary feedback mixes strategic vision with tactical fixes. Dave Koester envisions AI tube builder with custom artwork visualization. Taber Stone notes missing mobile search bar. Later research separated must-have operational fixes from nice-to-have strategic additions through MoSCoW prioritization with 28 participants.

Preliminary feedback establishes problem inventory. Later research establishes problem severity, business impact, implementation complexity, and stakeholder consensus. The preliminary captures what’s broken. Later research captures which breakdowns matter most and why.

Research Phase Connections

This preliminary feedback collection preceded and informed the formal research phases:

The high overlap between preliminary respondents and later research participants allowed validation of problem patterns across research phases. Issues identified in preliminary feedback (search dysfunction, portal absence, size chart usability) remained top priorities through MoSCoW scoring, confirming these represent genuine organizational consensus rather than individual complaints.

Four preliminary feedback participants (Sharon Read, Debbie Gerlach, Ross Talbot, Lety Cantu) were not included in later formal research phases. Their perspectives on checkout crashes (Ross), tax certificate processing (Debbie), tracking documentation (Sharon), and Mexico market needs (Lety) represent voices captured only in this preliminary collection.