The 7 Benefits of Sales Order Automation Processing Software

 you’re running a successful business today, you’ve likely hired some talented salespeople. They’re highly skilled at prospecting the right customers, speaking your customers’ language, and understanding how to solve their pain. Those qualities in a salesperson are what keep your pipeline flowing. While your salespeople may be just fine at doing the administrative tasks associated with sales, that’s not where their strengths lie. Things like entering data and manually routing orders to the next step are not where your salespeople should be devoting their time.

That’s what automation is for. 

Sales order automation specifically helps you optimize your inbound sales process in several ways — all of which revolve around handing time-consuming, necessary tasks to technology. Below are the top seven benefits your business will see from using sales order automation.

Fulfill Orders Faster

Automation in your sales order process enables you to generate invoices sooner, reduce the time involved in your order-to-payment process, and generally fulfill orders in a shorter amount of time. With a faster internal process of orders, you’ll maintain a better cash flow.

Get a Better Picture of Your Sales

Better cash flow means better visibility into your sales processes. Since the sales order automation processing software takes care of manual aspects of orders, your order data will be visible faster, and you’ll gain insight into the status of all orders through a dashboard. You’ll also be able to track orders to ensure they make it through all required steps and conclude. The software ensures you don’t lose orders and makes it easier to see when they have exceptions from the standard process. 

Reduce Risk

There is lots of room for human-based error in manual sales order processing. Involving humans in data processing always opens the door for risk and having to backtrack to fix mistakes. Automation allows you to reduce the number of opportunities for errors in your sales order process, which ultimately improves the customer experience and your compliance.

Improve Customer Experiences

With sales order automation software taking on the menial tasks involved in processing orders, your sales and customer support people can do what they do best: cement long-term relationships with customers, offer empathy when problems arise, and contribute to more strategic work. They can quickly problem-solve and innovate for ways to improve the customer experience. Customers also will have the most updated statuses on purchase orders and be able to receive notifications about where their order is in the process.

Reduce Costs

Your salespeople’s time and effort will be optimized in an environment that uses automation. Better use of time means less wasted money in the sales process and more efficient, productive sales and customer support teams. 

Boost Sales

Happier customers equal more sales. McKinsey reports that sales automation leads to “efficiency improvements of 10 to 15 percent, and sales uplift potential of up to 10 percent.” By simply introducing software, your team can better meet quotas and rank higher in customer satisfaction reports — boosting your brand reputation and solidifying a healthy sales trajectory.

Improve Employee Satisfaction

Your salespeople don’t want to be doing tedious manual data entry. That’s not why they got into sales. And your customer support people don’t want to be chasing down information. They want to provide stellar experiences. Sales order automation enables your employees to be more engaged in the work they like doing — driving up their happiness factor and contributing to happier customers.

The same McKinsey report noted that more than 30 percent of sales-related activities could be automated. From pricing and quoting to order management to post-sales activities, your organization can improve multiple facets of sales operations. With sales order automation processing software, your business will ensure that humans do what humans are best at work which involves intuition and judgment — and the technology takes care of the rest.

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Fast vs. Free: What Type of Shipping Do People Want?

In the age of Amazon, consumers are spoiled by fast, free delivery of items ranging from paperclips to furniture. The “Amazon Prime Effect” has led many consumers to expect to receive their items in two days or less, and when companies fall short of this expectation, it can have a negative impact on brand perception. 

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According to one study, one-third of consumers feel that fast shipping increases brand trust while 90 percent say free shipping is important to them. Another study indicates that 74 percent of consumers prefer cheap or free shipping over fast shipping. There is a lot of conflicting information out there about which is best, and while offering both is great, doing so isn’t always realistic. 

For most businesses, offering fast and free shipping just isn’t feasible. Unless you are sending out huge volumes of packages on a daily basis, you probably cannot offer the same type of speed and affordability that is available from mega-retailers like Amazon. Instead, you likely will need to choose between offering fast shipping or free shipping. 

So, which is best? Fast or free? The answer isn’t always a straightforward one. 

Fast Shipping

There are plenty of instances in which consumers need merchandise quickly. Whether it is a business owner who has run out of packaging materials or corrugated cardboard boxes for shipping their own merchandise, a spouse who waited until the last minute to order an anniversary gift, a student who needs a book for a class or anyone else who needs something in a hurry, just about everyone needs fast shipping from time to time. 

We also live in a world where we seek instant gratification. For most of us, the idea of placing an order from a catalog by mail and waiting four to six weeks to receive our purchase is inconceivable — even though that’s exactly how the older generation purchased things that could not be bought locally just a few short decades ago. Customers expect to receive orders quickly, and if they are left waiting more than a few days, they are unlikely to be satisfied with the experience. 

Offering fast shipping attracts customers who need to receive their orders quickly. Doing so also makes your company more appealing to customers who demand nearly instant gratification and do not have the patience to wait an extended period of time to receive their orders. 

As a business owner, though, offering fast shipping can be challenging. You need to have enough staff to quickly prepare orders for shipment, and you need to determine how much to charge for expedited shipping. Getting a package from point A to point B in less than two days comes at a steep price, and you will need to decide whether you will eat the cost or pass the expense along to your customers. 

For most small to medium-sized businesses, it just isn’t possible to absorb the additional cost of expedited shipping. Instead, they need to pass it along to the customer as an additional shipping charge. If you choose to go this route, you will need to make the extra charge clear to your customers and show them that the amount you are charginFast vs. Free: What Type of Shipping Do People Want? g is reasonable for the service you are providing. 

Free Shipping

Free shipping is also appealing to consumers, for obvious reasons. During the hectic holiday season, one study reports that a whopping 88 percent of online shoppers preferred free shipping over fast shipping, and it makes sense. Free shipping reduces the overall amount customers need to spend when shopping online. Instead of needing to allocate part of their budget to covering the cost of shipping, they have more money to spend on the products they are interested in buying. From a consumer perspective, free shipping is an attractive perk that sets many businesses apart from their competition. 

For business owners, however, the cost of offering free shipping to customers can be staggering. Online retailers that offer free shipping are forced to cover all shipping expenses themselves, which can significantly cut into profits. 

When offering free shipping, most retailers either make it a limited-time promotion or have restrictions in place to help reduce the financial impact. For example, many sellers require customers to meet minimum purchase requirements to qualify for free shipping. This helps offset the cost of shipping by ensuring that each order brings in a certain amount of revenue. 

Which Is Right for Your Business? 

Offering either fast shipping or free shipping is beneficial for online retailers. While many customers demand instant gratification, others are willing to wait a bit longer to lower their out-of-pocket costs. No matter which options your business offers, you need to determine how you will cover the cost on your end. 

While it is impossible to please everyone, offering multiple shipping options is usually the best way to go. Offering shipping that is both fast and free may not be feasible from a financial standpoint, but you may be able to allow your customers to choose between fast or free shipping. For customers who want to receive their orders without paying for shipping, you can use a slower method to save yourself some money — just be sure to disclose the slower shipping to customers before they order! For those who want to receive their items quickly, offer expedited shipping options at a commensurate fee. 

Offering multiple shipping options may be a bit tricky at first, but once you have established all the potential choices, you will likely be able to set yourself apart from your competition and attract customers with vastly different needs. 

In the end, the shipping strategies that work well for one company may be poorly suited to another. If you sell something small and lightweight like jewelry, it may be easier for you to offer free shipping than it would be for someone who sells something larger and heavier like athletic equipment. It is important to consider your business, your budget and your own goals and needs when determining what shipping options to offer. Meeting your customer’s expectations is vital, but it shouldn’t be done at the cost of destroying your own business. 

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