Better ordering processing improves everyone’s lives. Streamlined, effective order processing makes everyone happy, from the people in your office to your warehouse to your customers.
Who likes inputting orders? Who truly enjoys deciphering handwritten orders or inconsistent product names, fetching faxes, or taking the 10th call about the same order that day? Why spend the man hours on manually inputting orders if you don’t have to?
Order processing software isn’t as cool as buying the office pizza for lunch, but the office will appreciate it more than pizza.
Everyone loves getting a pizza for lunch, but that hides the pain of returning to spending the day inputting the same routine orders. Orders from customers who are impatient at how long it takes for the process to take place and frustrated that with how much business they give you, you still can’t give them faster service or greater insight into how their order is proceeding.
You might have the fortunate problem of having more business than ever lately, meaning that your team is getting out later and later every day. No matter how much time they put in, there are too many orders to get through them and get home in time for dinner.
That’s a great problem to have, but no one likes working 10 hours a day, even with free pizza.
So how do you fix it?
Standardize your order processing through software
You’re already using QuickBooks, and if you’re getting as much out of it as possible, you’re utilizing many features that will enable you to move your ordering to the next step quickly.
Why should your team have to input every single order? Why not have your customers input the orders they need? Why place an extra step between allowing them to quickly and seamlessly buy from you?
That’s what a great ordering processing software does. Customers order what they need when they need it. One of your team members reviews the order prior to fulfillment, and your fulfillment process moves along smoothly.
Rather than spending most of their day on repetitive order tasks, they can focus on solving problems, assisting other customers, or even enjoying a game of foosball.
See? Happier people.
It’s not just for when you’re growing – order processing software is for the business comfortable where it is, too.
Customer ordering software goes from “nice to have” to “need to have” for most growing businesses, but what if you’re running a steady business that’s not rocketing upwards in growth? Should you really worry about offering online ordering to your clients? Will they really care or even use it?
Unequivocally, yes.
Imagine things from your customer’s point of view
It’s the end of a long day, and they’re running through their inventory and figuring out what they need to order. It’s 8 p.m., and they really just want to be done—but instead, they’re placing orders.
Now, they have to figure out how to do that—do they need to call a salesperson? Did the part numbers change? Who were they supposed to email, fax, or call this order to?
Instead of all of that headache, they have a different option.
They go online.
Thanks to your online ordering system and your effective product descriptions, they can place their order at their leisure. They can take their time placing their order exactly how they want, and review it online at any time – because the entire process is synchronized online, through your website’s B2B portal.
When an order comes in, Now Commerce creates the orders in QuickBooks automatically, doing the processing that your staff used to have to do. Have a sales rep order or a fulfillment order for your B2B clients? Now Commerce is the robot that takes the tedious steps for you.
Compare that to placing an order with a rep, waiting for the rep to get back to the office, then inputting the order, getting the order approved, and sending an update back to the customer.
Effective order processing software makes your customers happier
They can take their time placing orders, they don’t have to call someone up whenever they need something, and the entire process becomes easier and more efficient.
They no longer have to stay late to place their orders, and you don't need to either to get them processed. Between other tasks, they can do things at their speed, and you just see the order that was automatically entered, ready for a quick review.
Everybody wins!
Wait, what about my sales reps? Won’t they lose business if they don't control the transaction?
Using order processing software actually helps your sales reps get more business!
Instead of spending time managing and taking routine orders, they can let those accounts place orders as needed.
Which frees up their time to find new customers.
The accounts still get the products they knew they wanted to order, and your sales rep can focus on the upsell – increasing their revenue and making them more efficient.
Customers have more insight into their purchases. Salespeople have more time for sales activities.
Again… everybody wins!
Wholesale businesses operate differently; you need order-processing software tailored to your needs.
Every wholesale business is different. It's not just different between industries—of course, a restaurant supplier will have different needs than a clothing distributor.
However, each business is unique, even among restaurant supply distributors and clothing wholesalers.
QuickBooks offers many options, but you need something that you can further tailor to your business's needs. You have a process that works, and the order-processing software needs to complement that.
Which might be why you’ve waited to try one out.
Or you’re still using one that doesn’t quite meet all of your needs, but you’re too busy to look for something new that might be better.
After all, if it’s not broken, why fix it? You’re still running your business; orders still come in, and people still have jobs to do.
But you and your team could start going home early for a change. Wouldn’t that be worth it?
