When we think of good service, we traditionally think of the personal attention of a seasoned waiter in a trendy restaurant or the attentiveness of a five star hotel concierge. But in today’s world there are many instances where we receive better service when we serve ourselves.
ATMs have nearly eliminated bank lines by automating routine transactions. Self-serve ticketing kiosks and internet check-in have had the same effect at airports. We hardly miss personal service when we can get what we need quickly and easily.
Preferred Fragrance Goes Self Service
Preferred Fragrance recently changed over to a serve-yourself model that resulted in better service to their sales staff and increased efficiency that cleared the way for handling more sales transactions per day.
Preferred Fragrance imports and wholesales it own line of perfumes. To place accurate orders, sales representatives needed to know inventory levels and delivery dates to specify right quantities and correctly inform customers when they will receive the products ordered. This had sales reps calling to check stock inventories on nearly every order. The method consumed office staff time in looking up the necessary information; meanwhile the reps were left waiting unproductively on the phone.
New System Gains Efficiency
Preferred Fragrance called on PC Ware to create a sales portal where reps can go online to look up everything necessary to place an accurate order. They can check stock, customer order history, request samples, and generate unique price lists for each customer. And office staff can now focus on their key tasks rather than fielding calls from sales.
More Accurate Forecasts – More Satisfied Customers
The improved system allows for more accurate forecasts of delivery dates by tracking shipping containers, work in process, and production status. Managers can quickly respond to shipping delays because the system can recalculate availability dates for each order inside a container delayed in transport, while securing vendor specific data to keep it from falling into the hands of competitors.
Inventory managers are in control with the new system’s ready information on container due dates and today’s expected deliveries.
Is your business diverting staff time to answer routine questions? Call Zev for a consultation to discover how efficient your operation could be.
Zev says: “For a high volume of routine look ups, automated self-serve adds efficiency.”
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