An order management system that syncs with QuickBooks has many benefits inside a small wholesale business. It allows B2B customers and outside reps to efficiently place orders and answer their own customer service questions so your inside staff can use their talents to grow the business instead of spending their days in QuickBooks. Your customers will benefit, too. Here are five reasons they will love an online ordering system.
Customer retention is an important aspect of any business, including companies who sell B2B. According to KISSMetrics, acquiring a new customer costs seven times more than keeping an existing one. On top of that, existing customers tend to spend more than new ones do. The math is easy. If it costs less to retain a customer who will spend more, then at least some marketing resources should be spent on improving customer loyalty.
A comprehensive order management system improves customer satisfaction and decreases costs by increasing communication among all company departments. It helps sales, order processing, accounting and customer service, and shipping all stay up to date with the other departments’ activities, so that all operations run smoothly. Regardless of whether you are a wholesaler who has many different departments, or where a few people wear various hats, every wholesale company can benefit from the increased communication that comes with a well-designed order management system.
If your staff is spending more than an hour or two a day entering orders or answering routine questions from reps and customers, then you should consider getting them some order management software with online rep and wholesale customer portals. The more time your employees spend on mundane tasks the less time they have to spend on activities that will really help the business thrive.
Portals that let your reps and customers place orders and answer their own questions 24/7 will save you time and will increase customer satisfaction by giving them instant access to the info they need.
Utilizing the right order entry software is not only one of the most important decisions you can make to reduce data entry, customer service questions, errors, returns, and make your order processing more efficient, but did you know it can help you go paperless as well? While many small business owners are a bit intimidated by the thought of "going paperless", doing so is not only much more efficient for your sales people, your customers, your warehouse, your managers and your customer service reps, but it can save you an abundance of hard earned cash as well.
Business owners do not want to think about returns and refunds, and for good reason. Not only can processing high numbers of product returns and refunds become extremely time consuming, but it can be very costly as well. In order to effectively reduce the number of returns and refunds your business experiences, efficient inventory software is essential.
Every manufacturer welcomes growth, but transitioning from a small to mid-size wholesaler brings several challenges. One of the biggest issues is the burden of increased data entry. The more orders you take, the more data you enter and need to share with various departments. Eventually, the amount of information being entered and shared will become overwhelming and a new process for entering data will be needed.
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.
