Part 1 : Triumph and the website

Congratulations on your recent triumph, Richard. Has winning the @chievement award had any impact on the web business?
The award has had a massive influence on the online side of the business. It has approximately quadrupled the turnover in 6 weeks!

Impressive! And as part of the prize, you get to spend two days with Arthur Andersen. So will you be learning from them, or will they be learning from you?
I'm intrigued to hear what they've got to say. One of the most exciting developments is going to be the virtual franchising of this website - tailor made to fit every county in England Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

Each franchise would have to source from their own county and I will run the admin/logistics centrally from my farm. Over 100 farmers have already stated their intention to join the cooperative, so there is plenty of work to do. I hope the Anderson lot don't think they are coming down to Somerset for a rest!

You have a rich and innovative website. What are the elements that attract the most attention from visitors?
The most attention is centered around the information about all aspects of life on the farm. As people have become more and more urbanized, they are increasingly fascinated by a lifestyle that perhaps their Grandfather might have lived a couple of generations before them. It is enjoyable for them to see - for the first time - the actual fields that their food is coming from.

It creates a feeling of comfort and security after the well- documented health scares in the UK. Rather than having to ask a teenager working part time in a supermarket, they can communicate directly with the farmer that milked the cows that morning. To develop this idea further I have recently developed a completely interactive virtual farm tour in the form of an i-card that enables my customers to navigate their own way around the farms.

It leads on to a reconstructed farm shop with an animated shop assistant. It's a sort of Wurzel Gummidge meets Disney sort of thing! (Editor's note: Wurzel Gummidge is/was a lovable scarecrow character on British TV)

Farming, particularly livestock farming, is a pretty intensive job. How much time can you devote to the website, or do you have other people to do the day-to-day changes? How much work does this require?
I have to delegate massively. There aren't enough hours in the day I find, which is a shame but it seems to work OK. People have their own ideas, and imagination is not limited to the man or woman that controls the company. In fact, most of the best ideas have come from the most unlikely sources. My little sister, aged 10, has come out with some gems! The previous day's work is shown to me at our daily meeting at 7am so I can still oversee exactly what is going on.

You have an interesting service where you let people tell you they want you to call them. Does this get used much and what was your thinking behind the decision to offer that service?
The Netcall phone back service has been one of the best additions to the website. At times, 1 in 5 people make some use of it. It is another form of communication and allows me even closer links to my customer. The internet is not the be all and end all of customer interaction, and I think it is wrong for companies to assume this. It is just one tool we have, as suppliers, to communicate with the buyers. If a phone call can complement my level of customer satisfaction then why deny them that? My customers are real mums with real families and real concerns - I am not dealing with androids and too many companies forget this.

Continued...