How good is your order management? Do you always have enough stock to meet demand across all locations and in all seasons? And have you automated order management, or is it still a time sink?
Whether you’re running a small local business, a thriving eCommerce store, or a big company, order management is something that you can always improve. And since better order management ultimately means higher customer satisfaction, it’s something you should review periodically. Here are some simple but effective ways you can improve it right now.
1. Break Down the Order Management Into Steps
Take the time to understand how your order management process actually works. What events trigger it? In what order? Can any of the triggers be adjusted to improve results? With a cloud inventory management system it’s easier to make sense of your order management workflow and to adjust it. Don’t let your order management workflow get lost among so many spreadsheets, emails, and phone calls. Break it down into steps.
2. Improve Your Sales Forecasting
The quality of your order management process will be influenced by how timely and accurate your sales forecasts are. Sales forecasts shouldn’t be too complicated or too detailed, or you’ll feel overwhelmed before long. The cloud sales forecasting app you use with your inventory system should break down information into charts and be easy to understand.
3. Enforce a Documentation Standard
Standardize customer notes and shipping preferences. These can make or break an order, and have a major impact on customer preferences. But without a system in place that takes account of them, they can pass unnoticed. The system you use needs to make it easy for you and your staff to view any notes customers leave you.
4. Automatize Order Management
Think of it this way — the more you automate, the fewer errors will creep into your order management process. Not only that, but you will also save time and resources that your staff can then invest in other aspects of your business. Automating order management isn’t simply a question of adopting a mobile inventory app with automation rules. You have to establish an automation protocol and revise and update it periodically. People on your team need to understand how automation works and at what stages of the process they should intervene if customer dissatisfaction appears.
In the end, it’s good to remember that your order management can only be as good as the software and technology you use to streamline it. Is your cloud inventory management system up to the task? If not, the time has come for you to upgrade it.
