It is nearly impossible to evaluate any aspect of the
current business environment without first considering the lingering impact of
the global financial crisis. In its immediate wake, companies large and small
were forced to make drastic changes, many of them having to adjust their staff
count downwardly to cut costs and stay competitive.
Consider customer service (CS) management: although modern
order processing is largely technology-driven, it still requires a significant
amount of human intervention to ensure accurate order fulfillment, keep
hardware and software systems running smoothly, and maintain customer
satisfaction. When the economy came to a crashing halt in 2008, a chain
reaction was set off. Weary and cash-strapped customers stopped ordering from
companies; in turn, these companies, needing fewer employees to process orders,
reduced their headcount.
But that was then and this is now. Things are all back to
normal, right? Any company that processes customer orders knows that “business
as usual” is anything but. While the still-delicate global economy has
rebounded to a reasonable level of stability, new challenges are emerging for
companies as order volumes creep back to pre-crisis levels and the need for a secure
and sustainable business model grows greater than ever.
Identifying the Unique Challenges Facing CS Management
More
orders, less revenue
The good news
is that the economy’s slowly-but-surely bounce back has resulted in more order
volumes for many CS management teams. The bad news is that, for a lot of
companies, the orders being received are for much lower amounts making the
impact to the bottom line much less. To make things even trickier, some
companies’ customers are actually placing orders more often than they did
pre-crisis but for less dollar amounts tied to each order. Since every new
order coming in needs to be processed, this means more time, effort and
resources have to be utilized, impacting everything from first-call resolution and
customer satisfaction to workflow balance and order accuracy.
Headcount
balancing act
Because a majority of companies still process a significant percentage
of sales orders manually (i.e., using paper), it would seem like the logical
solution would be to hire more people in order to compensate for the increase
in orders. However, when volume is high but the revenue it generates is less,
it’s hard to justify bringing in additional staff members. After all, making
sure you have the right number of CS representatives to avoid downtime or
overload is hard enough in “normal” circumstances.
Therein lies the central dilemma. Companies are coming to
terms with the need to support their order growth as the economy recovers, but can’t
necessarily rationalize or afford to dial up headcount. It begs the question:
how do you manage growing order volumes with fewer people to process them?
The
madness of “manual”
While the first two challenges are relatively new
developments born out of the aftermath of an economic crash, countless CS management teams have always,
and are still, hobbled by an ever-present third obstacle that has become more
transparent in this new age of efficiency — manual order processing.
Companies that task their
CS staff with time-consuming and labor-intensive activities (e.g., picking up,
collating, distributing, entering, retrieving paper orders, etc.) know that on any given
day they might have to pay the price in returns, restocking, credit notes,
write-offs, wasted materials, additional shipping costs and customer
dissatisfaction from any of the errors brought on by manual touch points. Even
simple changes to an order or trying to track down an order (on the fax
machine, at the printer, with a CS rep, etc.) can throw an expensive wrench
into the system. With emphasis on cost-control and efficiency amplified, it
is easy to see why manual order processing is a proverbial millstone around the
necks of so many companies.
Why Sales Order Automation Makes Sense
Order automation is rapidly gaining
attention for its ability to erase many of the ever-present obstacles in today’s CS
world. By boosting productivity (multiplying the number of orders that can be
processed per person/per hour), automation solutions allow CS management to: a) gain visibility
into order volumes, b) enhance the ability to accurately forecast and measure
workload, c) free up CS reps from manually entering order data and shuffling
around paper to focus more on the customer, and d) avoid the costs of hiring additional staff. In short, order automation can lead to processing more orders, in less time,
and with the same (or sometimes fewer) resources.
One worldwide manufacturer that processes over 300,00
orders annually leveraged an inbound sales order automation solution to reduce
its processing time from hours to only 5-10 minutes. Prior to implementing the
automation solution, this company employed 23 CS reps to handle the manual
entry of each order line item. The reps were constantly being bogged down with
key order entry, which placed a strain on resources and negatively affected
customer satisfaction. After considering hiring more people, the company
instead chose to automate the process, leading to an improved customer
experience, increased speed and fewer errors. Order entry accuracy can rise to
virtually 100 percent with automation, resulting in less reprocessing and fewer
returns that can have a heavy impact to the bottom line.
Not so Fast … the Downside of EDI
Despite the availability
of mature and proven technology to automate sales order processing and
countless success stories of industry peers, companies across the country and
around the world continually stick with antiquated manual order processing
methods. Why? A lot of the hesitancy falls squarely on the shoulders of one
pesky acronym: EDI.
Customers
unwilling or unable to use EDI
Originally predicted to be the easy-to-use and universal
alternative to fax, electronic data interchange (EDI) has not created the rosy
reality we all envisioned. The fact is, a lot of customers are simply unwilling
or unable to leverage EDI, insisting on sending orders via fax or email instead.
Larger corporations may have the sway to bully their customers into using EDI,
but small to mid-size businesses are forced to accept fax and email orders
rather than refuse business (really, who’s going to turn down an order?). The
bottom line is that no one is able to get 100 percent of their customers to
switch to EDI. This forces companies to process orders in a number of different
ways, negating much of the efficiency EDI was meant to create.
Different
formats/templates/layouts
Even if you do have customers
using EDI, it’s not uncommon for them to alter the format of their EDI
transmissions. Plus, only a small number of customers actually use the EDI 850 standard
purchase order format, which is essential for ensuring optimal results. To handle
all of the different order layouts, companies will often invest in different tools/technologies
that command large sums of time and money to implement and maintain, and place
a strain on the IT staff that have to go in and modify the formats. The lag
time it can take IT to modify a customer’s EDI format can be days or weeks, causing
the individuals at the order entry level to print the EDI transmissions and
manually input them — a very time-consuming process.
Turning Fax and Email into EDI-like
Process
After learning about the difficulties of EDI, it’s not surprising that so
many companies are cold to the idea. But that doesn’t mean hope should be
abandoned. After all, order volumes are still going up for a lot of CS
management teams and the ability to stay competitive hasn’t become any less
important. Resorting to the default method of hiring more staff will help your
ability to process more paper, yes, but does nothing to address the underlying
problem.
Companies must accept that fax and
email orders are inevitable, and therefore, pursue a strategic solution that does
the same — one that more efficiently and cost-effectively processes fax and
email orders. Such a platform (implemented either through in-house software, or via the cloud) should
have the capability to:
§ Go beyond fax/email and provide visibility into the entire process
§ Have front-end setup (so if a customer calls to place an order you can
enter it there as well)
§ Work with existing systems you have already invested in
§ Convert fax/email orders into EDI, essentially treating all orders the
same
§ Overcome the limitations of OCR and multiple templates with intelligent
technology, such as Esker’s patented Dynamic Document Capture, which reads documents, grabs relevant information (e.g., PO number,
etc.), and actually gets smarter the more it’s used
§ Achieve 100% throughput to handle exceptions and manage all of your orders
on a unified platform (so you have full view at the individual order level of
where an order is the moment it comes in)
§ Bring together all the necessary functionality for unified customer
communications
The ideal solution
would be able to capture data from orders received by fax, mail, email and
print as well as electronic documents. For example, Esker Sales
Order Processing solutions not only support
existing EDI structures, they enables companies to leverage additional value
from them by expanding the range of information sources from which EDI files
can be generated. These types of solutions help businesses fill the EDI
automation gap and increase the percentage of order volume processed via EDI to
gain additional efficiencies without altering their existing business
procedures or IT infrastructures. Companies are able to treat all of their
customers, large and small, as EDI-enabled — even if they are not. And for
non-EDI transactions, order information can be fed directly into ERP
applications via Business Application Programming Interface (BAPI) mechanisms.
Conclusion
To recap, CS management
teams are continuing to shake off the effects of the last half-decade’s economic
turbulence. Order volumes are on the rise, but do not necessarily warrant the
need to re-staff. It’s in this “limbo” stage of
uncertainty and opportunity where decisions are made ever-the-more important
because they can mean the difference between falling behind and forging ahead. Fortunately,
novel approaches to managing order volumes and staying competitive — such as a unified platform that goes
beyond fax and email — are emerging, and act not only as an
immediate boost but as a high-functioning and sustainable business model for
the future.
About the Author
Renee Thomas
Director of U.S. Sales and Field Marketing
Esker Americas
As Director of U.S. Sales
and Field Marketing at Esker, Renee is on the leading-edge of customers’
document process automation needs. Her regular interactions with clients, as
well as involvement in user conferences, analyst relations, trade events and
strategic marketing plans, play a pivotal role in helping to shape and enhance
the development of order processing, accounts payable and accounts receivable
solutions.
Renee joined Esker in
1998 and became the Director of Americas Field Marketing in 2001. Previous to
Esker, Renee held a Corporate Communications role at Westinghouse where she led
employee and management communications, events, PR, and collateral
development. Renee graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree
in Communications, and in 2000 she received her MBA from the University of
South Carolina.
About Esker
Esker is the worldwide leader in
document process automation solutions. Addressing all types of business
processes, from accounts payable and accounts receivable to order processing
and procurement, Esker cloud computing solutions allow companies to automate
the reception, processing and sending of any business document with one
platform. Esker helps over 80,000 companies across the world to reduce the use
of paper and eliminate manual processes while improving their productivity,
efficiency and environmental impact.
With 36 million Euros in sales revenue
in 2011, Esker operates in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific with global
headquarters in Lyon, France and U.S. headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin. Esker
is listed on the NYSE Alternext in Paris (Code ISIN FR0000035818). For more
information, visit www.esker.com. Follow Esker on Twitter (News - Alert) at twitter.com/eskerinc and join the conversation on the Esker blog at www.quitpaper.com.
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