Few things are more exciting than getting the first sale from a new wholesale customer. After all, selling your products is the reason you're in business. Finally, getting that first sale is often the culmination of a lot of hard work.
However, receiving and fulfilling the order starts a whole new process that can be inefficient, time-consuming, labor-intensive, and vulnerable to mistakes and errors. First, your salesperson has to place the order. Maybe they call the back office, send an email, or maybe write it down and bring it back to the office. Then, someone in your office may need to contact your warehouse or fulfillment center to process the order.
While the order is being fulfilled, the customer can contact your sales team or office to check the status, which can drain even more time and resources. Finally, someone on your team has to manually enter the order into QuickBooks to get it in your billing system and create an invoice.
What if there were a way to do this seamlessly? What if your salesperson could place the order, and every other step happened automatically? Even better, what if customers could place their orders?
There is a better way. An order management system can automate your order entry, supply chain, and billing processes, eliminating every step that is currently done manually.
Here are five reasons why you should consider an online order management system:
1) Make your sales team more effective
Your sales team will never again be caught off guard with questions about an order's status. They may have to answer status inquiries with, "Let me check on that," or "I'll have to call the warehouse." An order management system lets them quickly check the status of an order with just a few clicks on a phone, tablet, or laptop, allowing them to answer their customers' questions and move on to the next sale.
2) Reduce time spent on customer service
How much time does your office staff spend answering questions about existing or past orders? An order management system can power an online portal where wholesale customers can log in and check their order history. They can check the status of open orders and pull up their invoice history.
3) Reduce opportunities for errors
Your salesperson takes the order and passes it on to your back office. Your back office then transcribes the order and submits it to the warehouse. The warehouse then prints off the order and fulfills it. Each step in this process is an opportunity for an error. An order management system helps eliminate those opportunities.
4) Eliminate manual entry into QuickBooks
If you have a lot of business, entering information into QuickBooks can be nearly a full-time job. An order management system automatically populates QuickBooks with order information, so you and your team can stop doing it manually.
5) Gain insight into your sales team's performance
Often, in a small business, gathering the data you need to accurately judge sales performance is challenging. How much business is attributable to each salesperson? Get that information quickly with aggregated data from your automated management system.
Automation is more affordable and accessible than ever
You can take control of your order placement, fulfillment, and invoicing process with your system. Many automated order management systems are cloud-based and can be implemented with a small monthly fee. Review your process for inefficiencies. Chances are, those inefficiencies can be resolved with an automated system.
