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Here are some areas within your organization we can automate and streamline your existing manual processes. The following flowchart and description are only a few processes we are able to automate, thereby saving your staff time, and making them more productive.

Overview:
This document provides a mock analysis of the typical small to mid sized Manufacturing/Distribution Company’s internal sales, support, ordering, fulfillment and marketing processes and supports the attached “Process Map” flowchart. Each numbered item below directly corresponds to the numbered callouts in the attached flowchart.

This document is for discussion purposes only. It is not specific to your company, yet we believe you may be able to relate to many of the items…

1. Your Mfg./Distribution Co. – Your company provides manufacturing and value-added product distribution directly to your customers as well as to additional distributors and resellers. Your product distribution range covers regional, national and international areas. Many of your sales, support, ordering and fulfillment processes are manual and time consuming. Your marketing efforts are not as optimal as you would like, and it is not easy for potential customers to find you online and purchase products from you.

2. Manufacturing – You have an internal manufacturing facility which produces a portion of the products you distribute. While reviewing your manufacturing process, the following items which are candidates for automation have been identified:

a. Raw materials tracking and inventory
b. Manufactured product inventory
c. Inventory control – no direct tie in to customer order system so there is no easy way to  anticipate order influx and make adjustments to the manufacturing process to balance the amount of available stock

3. Suppliers – You utilize outside suppliers to provide a portion of the products you distribute. While reviewing your supplier ordering process, the following items which are candidates for automation have been identified:

a. The suppliers you utilize offer drop-shipping, yet you do not utilize this service.
b. The suppliers you utilize offer online ordering and .xml ordering system consolidation API information which is not tied into your ordering system
c. The suppliers you utilize offer UPS WorldShip and FedEx which both allow for tie-ins to their online order/tracking platforms which are not currently being utilized
d. Your internal ordering process is performed manually via fax and is not automated in any way

4. Inventory – You stock products internally which you manufacture and you also carry merchandise which was purchased in bulk to obtain lower rates. Your day to day customer orders affect your inventory, but not always since items may come from manufacturing or are drop-shipped. While reviewing your inventory tracking process, the following items which are candidates for automation have been identified:

a. The current inventory cataloging process is redundant and manual, there is no tie in to the ordering system, or accounting

5. Sales Team – Your internal sales team works closely with existing clients, resellers and prospects to maintain competitive pricing as well as a consultative value-added sales approach. While reviewing your sales process, the following items which are candidates for automation have been identified:

a. Marketing support in the following areas have been found to be underutilized or non-existent:

i. Navigable informative website with a soft-consultative sales approach – Your current site is not easily navigable, and requires too many steps for the end user to contact you or purchase your products
ii. Search Engine Optimization – Your site does not come up on the top of the list of search results in Google or other major search engines when keywords pertaining your specific product offerings are entered
iii. Ad Words/Online Advertisement campaign – There is little initiative to drive potential customer traffic to your site
iv. E-mail marketing campaign – this is an excellent and inexpensive way to stay in contact with your potential and current customers
v. Directory listings – Trade reference sites and provider resource sites pertaining to your industry should have you listed in their websites as a resource

b. Customer Communications and Management – there seems to be no consolidated system for following up with customers and communicating with them about their order status, or new available products which they may be likely to purchase

c. Online Ordering – your current site is lacking the following potentially invaluable functionality:

i. Branded with your reseller’s logo, as well as your terms and policies
ii. Contains only the products you want your customers to have the ability to purchase at your specific price points
iii. Customers can purchase products using the payment methods you approve, these may include Invoice Net 30, Credit Card, ACH, COD
iv. Payment can either go directly to the reseller from your site, or you can handle the receivables and send a rebate
v. The customer is able to log in at any time to check the status of their order, and emails are automatically sent to the customer to notify them when their order has been received, and when their products have been shipped
vi. You can log into your administrative area of the site to view order status at any time, and this information can be used to schedule installations as well as customer follow-up
vii. Gather important customer data including their email addresses and associate customers with products they purchased to easily market additional products to them
viii. Once customer account is set up, they can log back in to the system to easily place additional orders and view their order history

6. Support Team – Your customer support team provides our customers with product support as well as repair services. While reviewing your support process, the following items which are candidates for automation have been identified:

a. Currently, your support is all handled through email, where messages and conversations with customers are being misplaced, and it is cumbersome to try to determine the chain of communication for any given customer or product problem
b. There is no centralized internal warranty tracking system, and the ability to offer extended warranties is non existent due to the lack of purchase tracking capability
c. Shipping and issuing call tags for repair RMA is extremely time consuming due to the necessity to call or email the customer, and correspond with them regarding their needs

7. Shipping – You utilize UPS to ship products ordered directly to your customers. While reviewing your shipping process, the following items which are candidates for automation have been identified:

a. Tie an e-commerce system to your shipping vendor’s system so that tracking numbers specific to shipments can be automatically sent to your customers and recorded within their order information for instant reference

8. Distributors – You have distributors who manage groups of customers and place bulk orders with you to redistribute to their customer base. While reviewing your distributor process, the following items which are candidates for automation have been identified:

a. The distributor’s fulfillment systems can be tied into your online ordering system with custom pricing

9. Resellers – You support resellers who re-market your products and provide additional value added resale. While reviewing your reseller process, the following items which are candidates for automation have been identified:

a. Develop custom branded ecommerce platforms for resellers to sell your products and have the orders fulfilled directly by you

10. Direct Sales – You provide direct sales of your products to specific customers. While reviewing your Direct Sales process, the following items which are candidates for automation have been identified:

a. Create custom purchase accounts for each customer with specific pricing only that customer can see

11. Distributor Sales – You support distributors who re-market your products and provide additional value added resale. While reviewing your reseller process, the following items which are candidates for automation have been identified:

a. Develop custom sales videos for use by distributor sales teams

12. Reseller Sales – Your reseller sales team directly drives the business your resellers are doing with you. While reviewing your reseller sales process, the following items which are candidates for automation have been identified:

a. Develop custom sales videos for use by reseller sales teams

13. Customer – The end customer is what the entire balance hangs on. While reviewing your customer support process, the following items which are candidates for automation have been identified:

a. Develop an online instant chat platform for customers to use for support
b. Create an online support ticket system which automates the entire support process and saves precious telephone time.
c. Develop an online poll to track customer satisfaction
d. Assemble an e-marketing initiative to keep in touch with customers, and offer similar products and services to which they have recently purchased
e. Make it easy for the customer to pay and review their purchase history by offering multiple payment options, and an online account specific to each customer which contains their order history, tracking information, payment status, and current communications.

For more information about how we can provide an analysis of your company’s internal processes, and how we can help save you and your staff time and money, please call us at (866) 529-8081 or email info@websurgenow.com