Streamlining your order management can be very beneficial for not only you, but your customers as well. B2B e-Commerce can get very complicated when dealing with an excessive amount of customers. Below is a great real life example of how order entry software can improve customer management.
Background
Our story starts with a very successful wholesale distributor of fresh produce to restaurants, schools and hospitals. They are in a highly competitive business that demands freshness, high quality, and exacting delivery schedules with very few errors. Pioneer Produce looked for an on-line sales order management system that is fully compatible with QuickBooks. As you may assume they selected Now Commerce. They wanted all their customers to be able to look at real-time stock statuses, view their standard and recent orders, and enter today’s order requirements without staff involvement.
How it Affects the Customer
One of their customers has 112 restaurants. Each one places a produce order every evening for delivery the following morning. Location managers started raving about the new flexibility. They said that their ability to order three hours later than previously available helps them reduce over-ordering. Our system allowed them to create an order after the dinner rush when they have a more precise knowledge of their inventory.
How it Affects the Distributor
Empowering retailers to place their own orders into a distributor’s QuickBooks system improves the speed, accuracy, and cost of the distribution process. It reduces miscommunication and errors while giving control to the customer, who can see and verify the order immediately.
The key is a simple-to-use, intuitive interface that makes it easy to convince end customers to use the system. Pioneer Produce rolled out the Now Commerce system very professionally and within days almost all of its customers were placing orders on-line. Many simply received the first e-mail announcement, logged on, and began placing orders without any questions or coaching.
End Result
By eliminating the need to hand-enter orders that were called in or e-mailed, the order processing required less attention and produced fewer errors. The office staff appreciated that most inquiries about an invoice or past order history has lessened; instead, all the information is stored away in the system and can be easily pulled up by the customer online. Learn more about how an online ordering system organizes your business. Pioneer Produce estimates that Now Commerce saves them $6000 per year just in man-hour reductions. That’s a pretty penny to be saving year after year in exchange for making their order process easier and more efficient. Learn more tips at our B2B e-Commerce Blog.
So how could order entry software work for you? Is your business in a similar situation as our customer? We would love to hear from you and if you have any more questions about our customer then just leave us a comment below. We would love to answer any questions or give you more information on this case study!
Photo Credit: Rick via Flickr
