It’s never a bad thing to get new orders. After all, orders keep your business running. The speed bumps arrive when you need to fulfill the order. You’re not alone if you have yet to find the perfect system for fulfilling customer orders as efficiently as possible. Most businesses don’t have a system as streamlined or effective as they’d like.
Why is that?
It starts with the order-taking process. A salesperson may have handwritten a form, called it in, or emailed it, or customer service has taken a handwritten order of its own.
Once these orders are captured, they must be entered into an electronic system to advance in the fulfillment process. Many companies rely on multiple platforms because no single solution seems to encompass all the necessary features or capabilities. Each department—billing, distribution, and customer service—utilizes its own platform, managing orders in distinct ways.
This fragmented approach results in redundant tasks being performed by multiple individuals, leading to inefficiencies and wasted time. Every repeated step introduces a new chance for errors—an address might be mistyped, a part number could be incorrect, or an order might be overlooked entirely.
There’s a better way.
Using automated order entry software helps streamline your order system and prevent human error from the process.
It’s more than just an online way for customers to place orders; it's a little better than a formalized email order form. It’s much more than simply allowing your customers to place orders online (although that’s a big deal too). It’s a way to automate your fulfillment process.
How much time is your accounting team spending simply copying orders into QuickBooks? If the answer is “too much,” that’s more common than you might think.
It’s a common problem because so many businesses aren’t unaware of any other way. The common thinking is, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” – they can process their orders, they get by, and if the only thing lost is some time, what’s the big deal?
Repeating one or two orders once a day isn’t a big deal, but your business doesn’t run on just one or two orders. Or if it does, it runs on large, complex orders with dozens or hundreds of items on those orders.
There’s a better way than forcing your poor accounting team to re-type everything by hand.
You can integrate your order entry software with QuickBooks. When the customer places the order, the information is automatically loaded into the accounting software.
No more double entry, no more wasted time. It’s all there. It’s also there with all the billing information, the pricing for that customer, and any additional information you’ve added to QuickBooks.
A top-tier order entry software allows you to configure ways for it to work with your distribution department or even your third-party fulfillment center.
When the order is placed, it gets sent to your distribution team. They collect or review the needed information, pull the items for the order, and ship it.
Talk about a streamlined distribution process! There’s no delay while waiting for orders to be input, inventory to be checked or any of the other dozen steps that happen because of the human element.
Instead, it’s all handled automatically. It’s like having a robot taking over the mundane, monotonous tasks that you don’t really need a human to handle.
It won’t be quite at Amazon's level, but Amazon has set the bar for what customers expect to see regarding order status.
So when your customer calls to ask about an order and waits for the sales rep to call and check with the office staff, who have to check the order and call the distribution center, they need to find the order…
Then when they do, that chain happens again, in reverse, until an hour (or hours) later, the sales rep gets the chance to call the customer back and tell them that a few hours ago, the order was being packed or was ready to be picked up.
With order entry software, you can automate the customer management experience.
Since the software is synced with your distribution center, the status of that order is readily available online.
When your sales rep receives a call about an order, they can log in and check the status on their phone, giving the customer the answer in moments rather than hours.
Implementing order entry software isn’t a tool that’s limited to big businesses or those with sophisticated IT teams to make it work.
Now Commerce offers easy-to-use, affordable software and grants you the same modern technology that the bigger businesses use.
Take back control of your order entry process and free your team to work on improving business. Rather than spending their day on the same repetitive tasks, they can focus on the problems that no one has ever had time to deal with.
Imagine what your team could do in the time they normally spend on order entry. How much more could they get done on other projects?
How much happier would your customers be with more efficient order fulfillment?
How much happier would they be with increased insight into the status of their orders?