21 November 2006

Visitors to www.whirlpool.co.uk can now locate their nearest stockists offering products of interest to them, and access interactive maps showing their exact locations, thanks to Multimap, Europe’s number one online mapping provider. The world’s leading manufacturer and marketer of major home appliances has deployed Multimap’s Storefinder service to improve customers’ experience of Whirlpool online, and boost footfall to stockists.

Ray Isted, Whirlpool Brand Marketing Manager, explained the choice of Mulitmap as online mapping partner, “With an ever increasing number of consumers visiting our website every month, our mapping provider clearly had to be able to cope with large traffic volumes and offer an uninterrupted service at peak times. Obviously, speed of implementation, competitive pricing, and the quality of the maps themselves were also key deciding factors. Multimap satisfied all our demands and we’re very pleased with the results of our decision. Feedback from our customers is that they are pleased with it, too!”

To access the service, Whirlpool’s customers simply click on the ‘Services & Spares’ link at the top of the company’s homepage, www.whirlpool.co.uk, followed by the ‘Dealer Locator’ tab. They identify their location by entering the name of their street, town and/or postcode, or by clicking on the UK map that appears, and specify the type of products that they’re looking for (built-in, free-standing, American fridges and/or BlueTouch washing machines). Multimap then delivers a list of the top ten nearest suitable Whirlpool stockists, along with a map showing their whereabouts. Store telephone numbers and a list of the product types stocked are provided, and users can zoom in/out, pan N,S,E,W, and click on listings of interest to adjust their view of the map.

Steve Frost, Head of Sales for Europe at Multimap commented, “Many leading manufacturers, both UK and global, use our online stockist locator and mapping services, and we are thrilled to welcome Whirlpool to the fold. The addition of our services to www.whirlpool.co.uk very much supports the values of the company’s recently re-vamped website, the purpose of which was to encourage even more customer interactivity on the site. Further, our Storefinder service offers an immensely useful tool to customers who, having been empowered to find nearby suitable stockists, are then much more likely to proceed to make a visit, and indeed a purchase!”

About Multimap

Multimap is one of the world’s leading providers of mapping and location-based services. The company delivers more online maps, point-to-point driving directions and geo-spatial ("where's my nearest?") searches to more companies than any other supplier in Europe. All services are offered on mobile, PDA, kiosk, and interactive TV platforms. We also offer a highly-functional API (Application Programming Interface).

The public website, www.multimap.com, provides a range of free, useful services to assist with everyday life. Key features include street-level maps of Europe, USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia; road maps of the world; door-to-door travel directions; aerial photographs; links to location information; and services such as hotel, restaurant and entertainment booking. The public site attracts over 10 million unique users, registers more than 190 million page impressions every month, and is one of the top 10 most visited websites in the UK.

Multimap recently featured in The Sunday Times Virgin Atlantic Fast Track 100 league table of fastest-growing unquoted UK companies across all sectors. In 2006, it featured in the Sunday Times Microsoft Tech Track 100 league of fastest-growing unquoted UK technology companies for the fourth year running. Also in 2006, Multimap won the Innovation category of The Queen’s Award for Enterprise. In 2005, Red Herring named Multimap as one of the top 100 private companies in Europe, and the company featured in Deloitte Touche’s Technology Fast 50 league for London and Southern England.

About Whirlpool

Whirlpool Corporation is the world’s leading manufacturer and marketer of major home appliances, with annual sales of more than $19 billion, more than 80,000 employees, and more than 60 manufacturing and technology research centers around the world. The company markets Whirlpool, Maytag, KitchenAid, Jenn-Air, Amana, Brastemp, Bauknecht and other major brand names to consumers in nearly every country around the world. Additional information about the company can be found at http://www.whirlpoolcorp.com.