Customer Experience

Remember when a customer complaint was handled at the window?  An angry customer might tell a few people about a bad experience, but the ripple effect usually didn’t go too far.

Not anymore.

Today people rant.  And they rant very effectively.

Social media has enabled a dissatisfied customer to broadcast a complaint to a wide audience.  You can try to rebut the criticism.  Or, you can try to avoid it in the first place by offering an excellent customer experience.

What are the ten most common problems that erode an excellent user experience?  The are:

Poorly trained staff

Arguing with customers

Being inaccessible to customers

Inflexible policy

Fail to keep a promise

Lousy customer records

Giving the customer the runaround – transferring to other people or departments

Canned responses

Not listening to customers

Making the extra effort – please, thank you and going the extra mile

How the heck, you may well ask, can a really good Order Management and Warehouse Management system help me to avoid these problems?

We’re glad you asked.

Poorly trained staff

The staff you have taking and filling orders has to get it right.  Every time.  If you don’t have excellent inventory records and controls, if you don’t have a highly automated and accurate order receipt system, human error is sure to contribute to problems.  If you have high personnel turnover , or significant seasonality, in your business, training new employees exaggerates this problem.  A good OMS and WMS will make training new employees a breeze.  Customers tell us that the time required to train new employees has gone down from weeks to about an hour.

Arguing with customers

The customer is always right.  We all know that, but it’s hard to remember.  If our company is struggling to be profitable, it’s harder still to remember.  If our customer service staff is putting out fires all day long, every day, it’s easy for them to become intransigent with customers who may be a bit unreasonable.  On the other hand, if the customer service department spends most of its day upselling and answering calls from happy customers, it’s easy to be generous when dealing with problems that really are of the customer’s making.  A good OMS and WMS will reduce errors that you caused.  It will enable you to be more profitable and sell more.  Like the Nordstrom department store chain, you can cheerfully offer refunds and exchanges if your profit margins are high and your product delivery is perfect.  In that situation, the cost of offering a generous return policy is acceptable, in comparison to the benefit of the high level of customer allegiance resulting from offering a consistently excellent user experience.

Being inaccessible to customers

“We are experiencing unusually high call volume.  Calls are answered in the order in which they were received.  There are 271 customers ahead of you.  Your wait time is anticipated to be 47 minutes.  This call is not being recorded.  Your outraged screams will not be heard…”  We’ve all been there.  We don’t want to put our customers there.  A good OMS and WMS system will ensure that you have fewer complaint calls, because orders will be filled promptly and accurately.  Fewer complaint calls means shorter wait times for customers and a leaner customer service staff.

Inflexible policy

A company that makes a lot of mistakes often maintains an inflexible policy on returns and exchanges.  They have to in order to stay in business.  We all anticipate our profitability on the assumption that we will sell a certain amount of products at a predictable gross margin and our administrative costs will be a manageable percentage of the gross.  Returns and a large customer service staff eat into those predicted margins leaving the company with little alternative but to be inflexible about questionable returns and exchanges.  A company that makes very few mistakes can accommodate every customer, even when the customer really doesn’t deserve the accommodation.  When that happens, the social media buzz is highly complementary and positive.  You can’t have too many friends and one is too many enemies.

Fail to keep a promise

Any promise.  We’ve said enough above about customer service personnel.  As we’ve already observed, customer service personnel never have to break a promise if everything they hear from customers is positive.  But, you make many other promises to your customers.  You promise that their order will be accurately and promptly delivered.  You promise that they will be billed correctly.  You promise that the shipping charges will be logically related to the size and value of the product being shipped.  Excellent OMS and WMS systems will ensure that you keep those promises every time, on every shipment.  You will process orders accurately; you will provide timely advice to customers at every stage of the process.  You will know your inventory and you will be able to ship everything that is in your catalog.

Lousy customer records

“Please give me y our address and order number.”  “I just gave it to the last person I spoke to, and I already typed it in on the computer screen.”  “I’m sorry sir, but I don’t have those records on my system.”  This dialog could be repeated about the shipping address, the credit card information, the item being ordered, or any number of other critical bits of information.  An excellent OMS will solve this problem.  With complete integration with the CRM and the WMS, the information will be collected accurately once and disseminated to every other system.  The need to put a customer on hold while a customer service representative investigates shipping status will be a thing of the past.  All the information that everyone needs – from the front office to the shipping department – will be available instantly and will be updated automatically.

Giving the customer the runaround – transferring to other people or departments

“Thank you for calling the Customer Care department.   Unfortunately, I have to transfer you to the Shipping Department.  The hold time for that department is 20 minutes …”  By integrating the information from all of your systems, every contact person in your company can have access to every bit of critical information necessary to provide an excellent user experience.  An excellent system will ensure ease of data entry and extraction and will minimize training time for system use.  All of these advantages equate to a better user experience, higher sales and more profit.

Canned responses

A company that receives many complaints needs an army of customer service personnel.  That means many junior, poorly trained customer service representatives.  A common management strategy to control these new and poorly trained staffers is to require that they provide responses from a strictly controlled list of “possible responses.”  A company that receives very few complaints doesn’t need so many customer service reps.  Having an experienced customer service department populated by people with the authority and autonomy to make intelligent concessions where appropriate can dramatically enhance your customer’s user experience.  It’s a simple equation: make fewer errors and you can spend more time fixing the few errors that will be made in a manner that enhances customer loyalty, rather than erodes it.  An effective and efficient OMS and WMS will enable that to happen.

Not listening to customers

Our customers will tell us what they like about our business and, more importantly, what they don’t like.  Sometimes they tell us with words.  Sometimes they tell us by not coming back.  An excellent OMS will provide a global view of orders from all sources.  If one marketplace is showing different results (either from the other marketplaces, or from its historical performance) it is imperative to have a dashboard that can bring that information to your attention at light speed.  If you receive verbal feedback from customers, that must be looped back into your CRM and used to improve your OMS.  A really effective OMS will be easy to modify and adapt to your business model.   Information is currency.  Don’t waste it.

Making the extra effort – please, thank you and going the extra mile

A highly effective OMS and WMS will reduce errors and give you fewer problems to address, with fewer personnel.  It cannot be overstated that the environment of an overworked and frazzled customer service department will be reflected in their customer interface.  If you make fewer errors, your customer complaints will be dramatically reduced and your customer service department will spend more time as customer advocates, helping to enhance their user experience, instead of trying to manage an overwhelming flow of customer complaints.  Your OMS and WMS are not simply tools to process orders and manage your warehouse.  They are tools to help you offer the optimal user experience to your customers.  They will help you increase sales and earn higher profits.  Join the Excellence in Customer Experience Revolution.  

Thanks for reading, don't forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for more company updates and look out for our next weeks blog discussing how to increase sales through "Selling Excellence".

TEL. (714) 656-2898 | info@avectous.com 

http://avectous.com

Sales Orders

If you can ship the order faster, you will receive payment faster.  Enough said.

Most of our customers have never really explored the cost of processing a sales order.  The cost should be negligible, and can be if it can be automated.  If you’re paying staff to manually process the order, your cost is probably much higher than you believe.  An effective OMS can decrease your cost-per-order by over 80%.

The best way to increase sales is to improve the user experience your customers have.  Consider Zappos.  Customers could buy shoes from many retailers.  They choose Zappos.  Why?  Because the user experience is consistently excellent.  Broad selection and astoundingly fast delivery.  How does Zappos accomplish this?  By processing orders instantly, confirming inventory availability, routing orders to the optimal fulfillment center and managing “back office” processes with complete automation and efficiency.  The result is customer loyalty and customer referrals.  Isn’t that what your business wants?

Mistakes.

If Zappos filled the order instantly, but sent the wrong product, the user experience would be terrible.  Once again, an automatic and accurate order management system is imperative.  It must integrate completely and seamlessly with all the fulfillment systems used by the business to ensure that orders are received and transmitted to fulfillment centers accurately and immediately.  Should inventory be unavailable, instant communication to the customer is critical.  If the inventory is available, consistent messages to the customer advising of the fulfillment processes under way are equally important.  Your customer must receive automated notices advising that the order has been received (with confirmation of all details), the order has been picked, shipped, etc.  Tracking information must be provided to the customer accurately.  Mistakes must be eliminated and the accurate and efficient steps taken to deliver the order promptly and accurately must be instantly reported to the customer.

Cost

Duplicate processing, errors and error correction take time and cost money.  Customers must be called or emailed, fulfillment personnel must be taken out of their ordinary routines to backtrack and solve problems.  Inventory levels become inaccurate.  Orders get lost.  An excellent order management system prevents all of these problems and avoids the cost associated with them.

Growth

It is only when your back office systems are bulletproof that you can grow.  Your orders will increase, your efficiency will improve and your profitability will grow.  When you are scrambling to ship orders received several days ago, you spend so much time coping with the chaos of today that you can’t drive your company towards tomorrow.  An efficient, effective and thoroughly integrated OMS will give you the tools to build your business today and into the future.

Avectous Solutions

Order automation happens quickly and painlessly with Avectous.  Orders may be received in any format.  Say goodbye to manual data entry!  Focus your customer service personnel on customer satisfaction and upselling, rather than tracking down problems. 

Avectous captures 100% of the information necessary to quickly and accurately process orders.  That information is automatically shared with every other system that makes use of that information.  Your ERP, CRM, accounting system, inventory modules, warehouse management system, shipping and tracking systems are all completely integrated.

Avectous is completely intuitive and training new personnel is a snap.  Efficiency is dramatically improved and your business will do more with fewer people.

Avectous works in the Cloud or on an internal infrastructure, depending on customer preference.

Avectous …. Take control!

Thanks for reading, don't forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for more company updates and look out for our next weeks blog discussing how to increase sales through " The Customer Experience".

TEL. (714) 656-2898 | info@avectous.com 

http://avectous.com

Automating Order Processing

Automating Order Processing

Processing orders is the most critical process in your business.  Sales don’t happen unless orders are processed.  Inventory isn’t shipped unless orders are processed.  Bottom line … there is no bottom line unless orders are processed.

Accuracy, speed and volume are essential.

Why are so many companies still processing orders manually?

Reason one – we just don’t have time to switch.

Reason two – we can’t afford an expensive order management system right now.

Reason three – it would be too confusing and it would take too much time.

Reason four – our staff knows our systems

Reason five – our business is unique, how could a system match our processes?

With respect, our answer to these objections is BALDERDASH!

Will it take some time and focus to implement an excellent order management system?  Yes, it will, but the time saved over the next year (not to mention the host of other benefits) will offset the cost of this dedication of time by many times over.

Can’t afford it?  You can’t afford not to … especially with the system Avectous will offer at the most competitive price in the industry.  Feature for feature, there is no better value and the reduction in staff, inventory, space and the acceleration of payments makes the implementation of a high-quality order management system a simple and very compelling decision.

Too confusing?  Not at all.   A really good OMS will take your existing processes and automate them, giving your staff simple, effective and comfortable tools to process orders more quickly and accurately.

Your staff knows your systems?  Great, because the automation will make the transition seamless.  Certainly, you can change some of the processes, if you choose.  We’ll offer you a set of best practices that you may find attractive.  But, if the choice is to automate existing processes and ensure that your staff finds the transition comfortable and smooth, then that’s what will happen.  After a brief training period, your staff will be completely competent and enthusiastic about the new, effective labor-saving tools we provide.  Rather than causing stress, the implementation of an effective OMS will relieve stress and promote positive staff morale and productivity.

Your business is unique?  Probably not as unique as you think.  After many implementations at companies as diverse as a national electrical component distributor to an international apparel company – just about everything in between – we’ve discovered that there are some core functions that are common to nearly every customer.  Our greatest contribution to your project is our ability to customize these core functions to adapt to your business processes.  By adapting the 80% “common functionality” to the 20% of your business that truly is unique, we can offer a cost-effective and highly customized solution to your back office challenges.

Those are the objections we often have to overcome when beginning  a project with a new customer.

What are the positive reasons that our customers want to explore a new Order Management System?

You manage two kinds of orders – purchase orders to y our suppliers and sales orders from  your customers.

By automating purchase orders to your suppliers, you can accelerate the delivery of incoming inventory by over 30%.  This is critical to managing on a just-in-time basis.  Time after time we see customers with a built in “fudge factor” because they know that if they need the inventory in three weeks, they must order it six weeks before it’s needed.  Why?  Because it takes that long for the purchasing department to research the current inventory system, draft the PO, send it through the proper authority channels for approval, issue the PO, have it received by the supplier and give the supplier time to process the PO through their system.  We’ve found that most customers operate on an 80 / 20 rule – 80% of the PO’s they issue are repetitive.  Once they get to 50 units on hand, given a sales rate of 10 units per week, a PO is issued for another 100 units.  An effective OMS will synthesize the data from sales and inventory and build an automated schedule to issue new PO s.  These can always be overridden, or modified, but the productivity of building these calculations into the PO issuance schedule is enormous.

An effective OMS synthesizes a lot of data.  Sales velocity (how many of that item are you selling?) and Channel Efficacy (through which sales channels are you selling that item?) must be tracked so that better sales and inventory decisions can be made.  With many SKUs, it is virtually impossible to have a clear picture of what is selling and through which channels it is selling unless the information is automated and synthesized into a clear, relational report.  An OMS doesn’t just process orders.  It creates and collects information that can be sliced and diced to give you optimal transparency – to allow you to make fast, correct and effective decisions.

Purchase orders are often impacted by the financial reality of doing business.  Credit limits with one supplier may encourage the issuance of new POs to an alternate supplier.  Order size may be impacted by credit limitations.  To the extent that these limitations and decision-influencers can be automated, it is possible to take a huge amount of time and potential for error out of the system.  An effective OMS with a solid integration to your accounting system can help you effectively manage those decisions.

Thanks for reading, don't forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for more company updates and look out for our next weeks blog discussing "Sales Order Processes".

TEL. (714) 656-2898 | info@avectous.com 

http://avectous.com

Warehouse failures – How to avoid them Part 2

For a quick recap on last weeks discussion, please read last weeks blog titled Warehouse failures – How to avoid them Part 1

Let’s look at the sequence of steps that that was presented from last weeks blog. These steps ought to be in place and solidly documented prior to purchasing a warehouse management system. A flexible and effective warehouse management system automates existing processes.  Certainly, it can add best practice activities, as well, but the fundamental function of a WMS is to automate the processes that were manually documented prior to the implementation of the WMS. 

Here is a brief discussion of how detailed documentation can ensure that the functions automated by a warehouse management system will dovetail with the operating processes employed in a particular business.  Each of these functions should be well thought out and properly documented before even selecting a WMS.

Establishment of maximum / minimum quantities of inventory

After the implementation of a WMS, inventory quantities will be tracked automatically by adjusting inventory quantities as ordered are fulfilled (and inventory quantities are confirmed by cycle counts).  Minimum and maximum levels of all inventory items must be documented.  But, a good WMS can offer a great deal more functionality to help you maintain necessary inventory levels.  One efficiency benefit that an effective WMS can offer is to automate the issuance of new purchase orders to suppliers as inventory quantities fall below established minimum levels.  Once the supplier or suppliers are identified in the system, the time period between placing a purchase order and receipt of material can be built into business rules.  Quantity and price break information can also be woven into the matrix of decisions that lead to purchase decisions.  A detailed list of all suppliers and the order processes and timelines should be created.  For example, Supplier A is local, and can ship small quantities in two days, but the per-unit price is higher.  Supplier B is a foreign supplier who ships larger quantities at better prices, but requires 60-days from receipt of order to delivery.  Before the peak season, it may be better to order larger quantities at lower prices, anticipating the length of time until the shipment will arrive.  During the slow season, it might be better to order smaller quantities from the local supplier, even though the unit cost is higher.  By writing these rules down, the warehouse management software can be considered in light of the data transmission necessary to support these requirements.

Cycle count or automated notice of inventory shortage

Even the best automated system requires confirmation from time to time.  Establishing a consistent and accurate cycle count system will ensure that the decisions made from information generated by the system are correct and timely.  Documentation of current cycle count practices is important.  Some companies don’t do effective cycle counting.  Even in that situation, a plan should be developed to cycle count at least the most critical inventory items on a regular basis, to ensure system accuracy.  Once a WMS is implemented, inventory quantities will be reduced by a standard deduction based on picking activities and / or production processes.  As cycle count activity proves the accuracy of the standard deduction of units from the inventory quantities maintained by the WMS, cycle count frequency can be reduced, based on the confidence level attributable to the consistently accurate inventory quantities.  But, even infrequent cycle counting can be slow and often interferes with production or shipment.  By automating the cycle counting process (by the use of RF technology, for example) the cycle count process can be fast, accurate and minimally disruptive to production and shipping schedules.   Again, the key is to plan and document the cycle count process, so that the WMS can adopt the frequency of cycle counts and inventory quantities can be adjusted, as necessary, after WMS implementation.

Automated or manual decision to purchase inventory

As noted above, there are some inventory items that are used on a regular basis, and some inventory items that must never be depleted.  It may make sense to automate the reorder process for those items.  By carefully documenting the use and replenishment of those items, it may be possible for the WMS to automate the reorder process.  At the very least, an automated email can be sent to the purchasing department to alert purchasing personnel of impending inventory shortages.  This must be coordinated with the time it takes suppliers to fulfill orders for these inventory items.  It will do no good to realize on Tuesday that there is shortage of a critical inventory item if the item cannot be delivered from a foreign supplier in fewer than 60 days.  Anticipatory inventory management is, of course, the key and a WMS system can be structured to anticipate quantity and usage and predict when purchase orders ought to be ordered.  For some inventory items, it is better to leave that decision to a human.  For others, the more automation that can be built into the system, the better.  Proper documentation and knowledge of the supplier and inventory dynamics is key to making the best decisions.

Issuance of Purchase Order to supplier

To replenish inventory levels, a purchase order must be issued to the supplier of that inventory item.  It is important to anticipate many aspects of this transaction.  Some suppliers will require minimum purchase amounts, which may be tied to volume discounts.  Some suppliers will have immediate availability of the required inventory item, while others will only be able to fulfill orders with prescribed intervals between order and receipt.  Certain suppliers may be sole-source, while others may compete for  your business on particular items.  While it is always logical to require a human member of the purchasing department to issue certain purchase orders, it is frequently possible to automate the PO issuance, especially in relation to items that are critical and must never be allowed to run out of stock.  For this reason, it is important to decide which inventory items fall into the latter category prior to the implementation of a WMS.

Receipt of Purchase Order confirmation with anticipated shipment / receipt date

Another activity that can be automated, albeit with the cooperation of the supplier, is the issuance and receipt of an acknowledgement or confirmation of a purchase order.  This will indicate that the price and quantity are correctly reflected in the confirmation and should also provide an anticipated delivery date. This information will permit the assignment of receiving bays and personnel to the receiving activity.  It will also contribute to assuring that critical inventory items are never allowed to be depleted.  Again, by planning this feature prior to the implementation of a WMS, the implementation can be planned to include this automated notice system.

Automated, or manual, scheduling receipt of incoming inventory.  Anticipating inbound inventory processes (preparing for receipt, location, quality control review, approval, authorization to pay, putaway).

There are many people and processes involved in receiving inventory.  This may include your suppliers, their transportation partners, your operations and administrative staff, your processes (receiving bays, quality inspection personnel, storage space allocation, etc.).  With numerous purchase orders issued to several  suppliers , assigned to a limited number of receiving bays, it is imperative to schedule these dynamics to avoid confusion, delay and expense.  An effective  WMS will automatically anticipate and assign space, equipment and personnel to the receiving tasks.  It will anticipate the storage space required prior to putaway.  It will alert the quality inspection department to the anticipated receipt.  It will help you to manage the chaos.  It is very important to evaluate these dynamics and build them into the WMS / Receiving system prior to implementation.

Receiving – physical location / process for goods – move to QC, cross-dock, ship upon receipt, etc.

Quality control review.  Quality processes – pass, reject, partial acceptance, notice to supplier

Putaway, inventory quantity updates, cost updates, etc.

Thanks for reading, don't forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for more company updates and look out for our next weeks blog!

TEL. (714) 656-2898 | info@avectous.com 

http://avectous.com