Does automating your sales order processing mean reducing headcount?
Contrary to popular belief, the purpose of automating sales order processing is often not to reduce the number of full-time employees. Rather, customer service managers and supply chain leaders are often striving to retain their staff and make them more productive. Instead of reducing headcount, there are many more soft benefits being factored into the business case for sales order automation.
4 Soft Benefits of Sales Order Automation and Their Tangible Benefits
- Reduction in overtime = lower costs and more time for families
I recently spoke with a pipe manufacturer whose key driver for their automation project was eliminating mandatory overtime. Management was concerned their customer service representatives (CSRs) were burnt out, more error prone and likely to leave due to excessive overtime. Sales order automation equalled more time for CSRs to spend with their families and avoid new hire costs.How close are your CSR’s to being burnt out and moving on?
- Cut out the mundane = better retention
One of our life science customers explained they routinely hire MBA level CSRs who tend to be expensive and tough to recruit. Killing their drive and ambition by asking them to key in sales orders as oppose to planning deliveries, improving processes and creating positive patient outcomes, will more than likely cause them to leave. There is an opportunity cost from losing their knowledge and the capability they could have provided the organization over time.How many of your educated CSRs are performing mundane order entry tasks?
- Recognize and promote
Another customer implemented sales order automation and used their six minutes per order time savings to avoid hiring additional employees. The most productive and efficient CSRs were promoted to coach others. Some CSRs moved to inside sales and even IT roles. With less CSRs needed in customer service, loyal employees were able to be recognized and promoted.How many CSRs have you been able to promote internally?
- Customer service = faster and better than your competition
The real win is when the CSRs are able to spend more time serving customers than entering and checking orders. For a furniture manufacturer, it meant they were able to answer customer inquiries in one short call versus three calls needed to locate orders and estimate delivery times in a manal workflow. Automation allows users to prioritize orders based on key products contained in the order, rush delivery times, manage orders for distribution units with cut off times, and the ability to treat certain customers with ‘white glove status’ as opposed to a FIFO work order.What’s the monetary value of meeting or exceeding your guaranteed SLAs?
Soft Savings Equal Hard Benefits
When companies invest in people, process and technology, we see happier CSRs who tend to stick around and contribute. Adrian Posterraro, Customer Service Manager at Medrad, invested in training, new processes and sales order automation. He was able to avoid new hires and dramatically improve morale, harnessing the soft benefits of automation to help increase customer satisfaction by 7.5%, absorb a 16% per year growth, and net a 4.4% profit gain (EBITA).
Soft savings add up. Be sure to vet the sales order automation solutions you consider and look for a solution that can offer more than just buzz words like “straight through processing.” Instead, ensure the solution vendor has numerous case studies in your industry, video testimonials and customers who can really describe how they utilized the time and effort saved with automation, and the results (both hard and soft) that followed.
Learn more about about the benefits of sales order automation from staff members at Medrad by watching this short video: Customer Testimonials: Sales Order Processing Automation