Communication Breakdown
July 14, 2008
Customer service problems demand freer information flow
By Neville May
It's a sad-but-true fact: Far too often, salespeople aren't sufficiently involved in the situations and decisions that affect their customers. When a business has to deal with such commonplace occurrences as the return of a product, delayed or expedited customer orders or a short-pay receivables situation, a lot of really pertinent sales or customer information is not readily available or accessible.
What's needed is to look at the circumstances and causal factors, which often necessitates consulting with other departments or people.
Think about it: Most ERP and supply chain software vendors still talk in terms of the classical exceptions, expedite, defer and cancel, some other basic triggers and data. But users need more than just these skeletal notifications. They need help with the background, causal and human factors, such as: Why? How much? How early, or late? What else is affected? Who else is affected? What are the alternatives? Recommendations? Cost implications? These often-critical aspects are key to effective event management.
Workflow and CRM applications have attempted to address this area, but lack the flexibility to cope with unplanned situations, so operational users have to rely on less-than-optimal approaches to gather the information (be it from sales or other sources). The result is too many voice or e-mail messages, Post-it notes, pink slips and personal notes, as well as meetings, conversations and phone calls. Since none of these are saved in any form that can be analyzed, the opportunity to gain insights into the business is lost.
Any of the three hypothetical problems mentioned in the opening paragraph could necessitate the involvement of the sales representative, customer, sales management, operations and/or accounting. Therefore, the relevant information should be accessible in three ways:
With the appropriate records and data in the enterprise system.
With an action-oriented or tickler format for each individual.
Retained for review to set metrics and statistics.
"Can we do better?" This was the question raised by Nucor Fastener, a building material manufacturer in St. Joe, Ind. As summarized by Jim Witucki, Nucor's sales manager: "We needed to transfer an employee's knowledge of a customer into the enterprise information. Nowhere in our ERP system was there a place for this information sharing."
Until now, that is. Nucor has found software that integrates with (and within) their ERP suite to provide facilities from messaging and event management to establishing innovative and meaningful performance indicators. This add-on application, Final Link, was provided by Systems Conversion Ltd. of Cartersville, Ga. Nucor makes use of Final Link in several departments, including:
Regional direct sales representatives.
Corporate-based sales, customer service and order entry.
Sales administration.
Shipping and receiving.
Production control/scheduling.
Receivables and credit control.
Purchasing.
"We wanted to improve our customer service in terms of order accuracy, on-time delivery and quality," says Tom Miller, general manager of Nucor Fastener. "In addition, we were very interested in improving and tracking communication with our customers. We wanted to establish metrics in these and other areas where metrics did not exist."
Nucor's additional software provides text and activity management facilities constructed around customer, product or vendor, with activity types, user profiles and priorities. Event triggers and activity displays ensure users are kept up-to-date. Information can be accessed via e-mail, PDAs and cell phones. All information is archived with filters and sequence selections to help detect previously obscured conditions and trends.
The use of this new tool is illustrated by Nucor's handling of expedite requests on customer orders. Users are informed and have access to inputs, concerns, issues, feasibility factors, customer/sales call notes, actions taken and dates achievable versus requested within the framework of the enterprise systems.
Following implementation, Nucor discovered 50% of its expedite requests were made by just 12 customers, and 42% of priority shipments went to only eight customers. The sales team now had the data to support their hunches and to address the situation. "Final Link has supported the sales organization at Nucor Fastener in numerous ways," Witucki says. "It assists us in tracking customer metrics: expedites, priority shipments, break-ins, special pricing, complaints, etc."
Businesses need more than the skeletal facts of typical systems. Background, causal and human factors are just as important: Why? How much? How early or late? What else is affected? Who else is affected? What are the alternatives? Recommendations? Cost implications?
To that end, Miller says, "The company has implemented Final Link in shipping, receiving, scheduling, AR and inside sales/customer service. Our outside sales force has embraced the product as well and is using it to track customer contacts, complaints, discounts, etc. It really is changing how we do our business."
Business today is based on managing relationships and events. Employee know-how and knowledge are vital. When most ERP systems were designed, this non-system information was not considered, but Nucor has found that transfer and sharing of this information results in significant and tangible payback.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
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