A 2013 survey of 400 North American and European business-to-business (B2B) companies indicates that 97 percent of B2Bcompanies offer online ordering for at least some of their products or services. Most B2B respondents also indicated that they planned to increase their electronic offerings by an average of 34 percent in the next year. For many purchasers, it's simply a better way to buy.
The speed of your sales cycle is one of the most influential factors that can significantly affect the growth and success of your business. Although the actual cycle can be a very complicated process, a more simplified outline of the process can help you better understand how an efficient sales portal can speed up your sales cycle.
Order entry software can take your business processes from ponderous and sluggish to streamlined and dynamic. For small and mid-size B2B operations, the change can be dramatic, and you’ll start seeing results quickly. You’ll wonder why you waited so long to adopt this valuable technology tool - especially considering how easy it is to implement and use.
The more time you spend answering routine customer service questions and doing data entry means less time you have to devote to the activities that generate revenue for your business. Given the fact that today’s business environment is more competitive than ever, streamlining business functions has become a top priority for companies that want to grow. An automated order management system can be the key to a smoother, more efficient process.
Business owners and managers have to be talented jugglers. You wear many hats during the day, trying to keep one eye on daily operations and the other on business growth opportunities. You can’t afford to waste time wondering where you stand, especially regarding wholesale orders. Order entry software puts everything right at your fingertips.
Order entry software boosts the power of QuickBooks.
The most effective software integrates seamlessly with your QuickBooks system. The system captures and applies customer-specific pricing, inventory, and shipping data automatically, so there’s never a need for redundant data entry. This enables you to use QuickBooks not only to manage your financials but as a communication tool that connects sales, customer service, accounting, and shipping. You can even send your shopping cart orders automatically to QuickBooks and integrate with your shipping software or 3PL warehouse.
Mistakes. Everyone makes them, right? Unfortunately, when you're running a business, a few innocent little mistakes can quickly add up to a serious expense. The wrong order gets shipped and you have to pay to replace it. Or an order gets delayed and arrives late and you have to cut the customer a break to keep them happy. These things happen.
If you're like most business owners, you understand that your employees, your reps, and even your customers are going to make mistakes, but you'd also like to find a way to reduce these costly errors.
You may have some systems and processes that you've outgrown but just haven't had the time or resources to address. If you're like a lot of fast-growing wholesale businesses, your order fulfillment process could be very high on that list.
When you first opened your doors, you may have been able to take orders, grab the inventory, and box up the product yourself. Today, you have more incoming orders than you and your team can handle. If you're still using the same process that you did back when you were a one-person operation, you may have a serious problem.
You probably pride yourself on excellent customer service. However, it's tough to manage your customer service when you utilize multi-line sales reps. Often, the sales rep becomes the face of your company to the customer. For all the benefits that can be gained with multi-line reps, you run the risk that the rep may make mistakes that undermine your customer service standards.
