Another year, another adventure for the lucky few at DRL. After the Kilimanjaro dozen, we now have the Atlas Six, who will be braving the sub zero temperatures to climb to the summit of North Africa’s highest peak, Mount Toubkal. The Atlas Six are looking to raise a minimum of £15,000 for Bolton Lads and Girls Club and there ways for everyone to get involved to help them reach their ambitious target, including…
Dress Down Weeks – Last week was the first of three dress down weeks in the run up to the climb. For just £5 you can forget about ironing your shirt before work and wear your own clothes to the office every day for a whole week. It’s an easy way to participate in the fundraising, and comfortable too!
Comedy Night – On November 26th DRL will host its first comedy night at the Over Hulton Conservative Club. Showcasing some great local talent this night is not to be missed. We’re expecting a great turnout, so get your tickets as soon as you can.
Tuck Shop – With Trick or Treat nearly upon us, you’ll find an abundance of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and cans of soft drinks in the office at the end of October. It’ll be £1 per Krispy Kreme and 50p per can, so if the folk in the Appliances Online office fancy a mid morning snack (or two) they know where to go!
BBC Radio – The Atlas Six and representatives from BLGC will be appearing on BBC Lancs & BBC Manchester next month to promote the great work the club do, as well as all the fund raising efforts. It’s a great opportunity to reach a lot of people with the message, so we’re looking forward to it a lot. We’re expecting them to be gracing the airwaves on the 15th November, but keep your eyes peeled for more details on when you can tune in.
Gift Wrapping Service – If you are stretched for time this Christmas why not take advantage of the Atlas six gift wrapping service. For a small donation the Atlas team will wrap any present, giving their lucky customers some time to put their feet up and avoid that obligatory Christmas Eve wrapping frenzy.
If you didn’t manage to see any of the video footage from the trip please take the time to watch this fantastic video produced by our very talented video team…
All that is left to say is a massive thank you to everyone who donated and to the 12 DRL employees who were brave enough to take on the challenge. You did us proud!
I’m sure you have all noticed the brand new Appliances Online product page. This page has been created by DRL’s marketing team using a wide range of research to find out what our customers want. Utilising tools such as What Users Do and ClickTale the marketing team were able to establish what was going wrong with our old product page and how to make the new product page more user-friendly for our customers.
Recently we sat down with DRL’s marketing team to discuss the re-design of the product page which has been a big success since it was introduced on the website last month. Featuring in this podcast are the following:
Appliances Online has come out on top in a recent Greenlight Report profiling internet search behaviours within the white goods industry. This is a great result for us because the Greenlight Report details retailer’s performance in both paid and natural search. The latest results reveal that our brand Appliances Online is the most visible paid advertiser within the white goods sector. This is even more impressive when you consider we are above the likes of Comet and John Lewis.
However it wasn’t just paid search where we had success, Appliances Online also dramatically increased its natural search visibility. This has coincided with the expansion of our SEO team and an increased emphasis on user friendly content.
A particular area of success for Appliances Online has been dishwasher and laundry products where the brand now ranks above John Lewis and Tesco within natural search and has an 80% share of voice within paid search. The Greenlight Report is released every three months and the team are confident they can continue to increase Appliances Online’s visibility across the internet.
Here at DRL we are always looking for ways to give something back to those in need and 2011 has been no different. Not only did twelve of our employees climb Mount Kilimanjaro in March for Bolton Lads and Girls Club, but we have now donated some old company mobile phones to the charity WaterAid which works to improve access to safe water for some of the World’s poorest people.
Our donation of 47 mobile phones will change lives when you consider that just £15 can provide safe water, improved hygiene and sanitation for one person living in a developing country. This small gesture and others like it continue to ensure more of the World’s population has access to safe drinking water which is something we so often take for granted.
This latest donation will certainly not be the end of DRL’s charitable giving in 2011. Next month our charity sports day will raise even more money for those who really need it.
Another night, another trip down to a glitzy award ceremony in London for a lucky few at DRL. This time it was the Oracle Retail Week Awards where DRL was up for the Growing Business of the Year Award.
The team were dressed to impress at the ceremony which took place on Thursday night at the Grosvenor House Hotel. Hosted by Jeremy Vine the event was attended by 1,600 retail professional’s from the UK’s biggest brands.
Unfortunately DRL didn’t come away with the gong this time; that honour went to The Original Factory Shop, however for DRL to be recognised at such a prestigious award ceremony is a great achievement and something that everybody at the company should be immensely proud of.
We were awarded the North West Training Awards 2010 in the Medium Business Category last week on Thursday 23rd September at the North West Regional Ceremony at Gorton Monastery in Manchester.
This is an amazing achievement for DRL, over the last 6 months we have invested heavily in training and development and thanks to all our dedicated employees all our has work has finally paid off!
Three cheers for DRL! We have beaten thousands of North West businesses and managed to shine amongst well know companies such as Warburtons, Morrison Supermarkets and Barclays.
We are constantly looking for new ways for our employees to learn and develop their skills, so if you have any suggestions please let us know.
2010 has been an extremely successful year for awards and I am sure there will be many more to come!
Adam Morgan, head of people development & quality here at DRL headquarters has just had word that we are now a finalist in the National Training Awards 2010.
The National Training Awards are run by UK Skills on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and is the most prestigious training award in the UK – so you can imagine our excitement!
We have heavily invested in our training over the last 6 months, with a call basics course introduced for our call centre staff to help them see the process from the customer’s point of view, and thus realise the care and attention our customers required.
The regional ceremony for the North West will be held at Gorton Monastery on 23rd September 2010, so fingers crossed!
Last week the guys from the Carbon Trust came down and performed a carbon survey report… well the results are now in, and the main recommendation? Change the light bulbs in the warehouse!
We’re extremely pleased with this result, as the report stated that our head office had energy consumption below the benchmark for a modern office. However we don’t consider ourselves off the hook just yet! We are constantly looking at ways to reduce our carbon footprint even further.
It is often the small things that make the biggest difference, so some of the changes we have already been making include setting all the PC’s in the office to auto shutdown at 8.30pm every evening, and placing house plants throughout the office to offset CO2.
Some of the other recommendations that came back from the carbon survey, which we are already beginning to put into action include: improving staff energy awareness; improving the monitoring of energy use; creating an energy management policy for the business and setting agreed limits for office temperatures.
I love all the funky colours available, which make a great statement in any kitchen, including: china blue; black; cream; cranberry; cherry red; stainless steel and ice white.
Celebrity chef Nick Nairn endorses the brand and has been using Falcon cookers for over 25 years, he says “I would never endorse a product that I don’t believe in 100% and during my entire professional career, and at home, Falcon has never let me down.”
