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Enhance the Customer Experience and Drive Revenue with an Order Management System
Fierce competition exists between businesses that sell the same or similar products and services in today’s marketplace. To stand out, many of these businesses have upped their customer service game, which is a very wise move. Statistics show that a company’s customer service—or lack thereof—influences 90% of American customers who are trying to decide whether to work with that business or not. And 58% of those same American customers will switch companies if treated poorly.
Providing a superior customer experience (thus, encouraging future purchases and lifelong loyalty) begins with a superb order management system—and by “superb,” we mean an order management system that ensures customer orders are received, fulfilled, and in the customers’ hands on time with few or no disruptions.
The Benefits of Order Management for Your Business
Jeff Bezos is quoted as saying, “The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works.” He’s absolutely right, but sometimes it doesn’t “just work.” When this is the case, it’s up to the business to offer exceptional customer after-sales support to resolve issues quickly and efficiently.
With the right order management system, businesses have the tools they need to address such customer concerns immediately, but they will also be able to proactively prevent these concerns from occurring in the first place. Here’s how.
Improved Efficiencies with Automated Sales Processes
Order management systems use automation to track every aspect of a business’s sales process in real time—from order fulfillment and replacement to recording and managing ordered or manufactured products. Order management systems also track all transactions (i.e., provide an audit trail), prices, order delivery statuses, and more.
Automated sales and fulfillment processes not only improve efficiencies but also cut down on the risk of human error and decrease the overall costs of maintaining workflows.
More Inventory Control and Visibility
One of the most challenging aspects of running an inventory-based business is actually managing the inventory. When businesses manage inventory with manual spreadsheets or unsynchronized and aging systems, it becomes very difficult to know where specific items are, how much of an item they have in stock, and how many items they need to buy. However, businesses using a modern order management system don’t grapple with these issues.
Instead, the order management system supplies detailed inventory data in a single, centralized database, and that database is accessible to all team members—from the back office to the warehouse floor. Automatic reordering can also be applied to help companies maintain optimal stock levels—not too much and not too little—based on accurate, up-to-date information.
Such robust inventory control and visibility prevents inventory headaches and reduces operational costs.
Expanded and Advanced Reporting and Analytics
As I just noted, an order management system stores inventory data, but it also stores data from across your organization. Your teams will have 24/7 access to this data, as well as the integrated reporting and analytical tools needed to turn the data into strategic, actionable, and timely insights. For example, because the system helps you monitor, report on, and analyze your supply chain data, you can anticipate potential pain points or identify and fix current inefficiencies in your order management processes.
Stronger Customer Relationships and a Better Customer Experience
Ultimately, automated and efficient processes, inventory control and visibility, and expanded, advanced reporting and analytics add up to one thing: unparalleled, successfully delivered customer service. Such high-quality customer service results in stronger relationships with your customers and a burgeoning bottom line.
Implementing Order Management Software in Your Business
The benefits of implementing order management software are clear, but what’s the best order management system for your business? There are several options, including standalone order management systems and order management systems that are available as modules within comprehensive business management solutions. Acumatica belongs to the latter group.
Acumatica’s Order Management solution seamlessly integrates with Acumatica Cloud ERP and empowers you to connect and streamline every facet of order management while enjoying the full functionalities of the ERP solution itself. You’ll save effort with automation, reduce order times, simplify pricing, know your true costs, and improve customer service.
Many Acumatica customers have already experienced the benefits of pairing Acumatica Cloud ERP with our Order Management software—one such customer being Cave Direct. Cave Direct is a family-owned importer and wholesale distributor of specialty and craft beer in the UK. Before implementing Acumatica, the company was relying on a legacy Sage system and was using spreadsheets to track inventory. These and other similar struggles pushed Cave Direct to search for a more comprehensive and efficient business management solution.
Cave Direct needed a digital platform with multi-currency capabilities, a real-time inventory management system, eCommerce functionalities, and the ability to integrate with their critical third-party applications. After evaluating several ERP contenders, including Oracle NetSuite, Acumatica was the clear winner.
“We chose Acumatica for its flexibility and online order management capabilities,” says Louise Smale, Co-founder and Managing Director of Cave Direct.
With assistance from Acumatica partner Arcus Universe, Cave Direct implemented Acumatica’s complete Distribution Management Edition, which includes our Order Management module. In addition to helping Cave Direct keep operations going during COVID-19 lockdowns, navigate complicated Brexit tax requirements, and automate and streamline operational workflows, Acumatica has also given the company full inventory visibility.
Said Laurence Smale, Head of Sales at Cave Direct:
Acumatica makes it a hell of a lot easier to sell in a product, knowing that we’ve got full control of where it comes from and where it goes. It’s an amazing tool for the team and gives us a whole new level of clarity and focus when consulting with the customer, which is key as our customers’ time and attention is constrained as it is, managing their own busy operations.”
And Colin Gilhespy, Co-owner and Managing Director, says:
Having that stock control is incredible. That’s put us at the forefront, especially in the craft beer industry. Now we can track it all; everything we do is in Acumatica. Whatever information we want, we can have it at the click of a button, and that’s the key to our success. We know what’s in each warehouse and when goods are sold.”
