Watching your eCommerce business flourish is one of the best feelings. However, for this to happen it is important that businesses do a lot of detailed tasks with perfection. This is where order management comes into the picture.
Managing your orders is one of the most important tasks while selling online. It serves multiple purposes and helps you take your business to new heights.
However, if you’re neglecting the management of your orders, chances are you are losing out on a lot of business. And that too without knowing about it.
Order management starts right from the time a customer hits ‘Buy Now’ on your store. The journey of the customer begins. And so does the process of order management.
The first thing that you do when an order is placed on your website is to pick the product. Whether it’s you or your team, you pick from the product from the inventory. Then go ahead to pack and ship it.
All of this might seem like an easy task for a small business. However, when your business begins to scale, that is when problems crop up. A little mismanagement can soon become a bottleneck for your online business. As a result, this will directly impact the productivity and destroy the experience of your customers.
However, with proper order management, all of this can be avoided. In other words, order management can not only save your business but also enhance your customer experience.
Sounds interesting, isn’t it?
We’ve got all the information you need on order management. Read on to find out how you can use order management to your benefit.
What is Order Management?
Managing orders is the complex process of fulfilling all your orders. It starts right from the time an order is placed to the time it is taken to the customer’s doorstep. Once the order reaches the customer’s doorstep, the delivery experience is fulfilled.
However, it doesn’t end at this. Order management also involves ensuring a post-order delivery experience. Moreover, the process of return management is one of the things an order management strategy must not leave behind.
The need for order management comes into the picture when you start growing your business. It might not seem like a lot when you’re fulfilling orders you can count on your fingers. But, as your business starts climbing the ladder of success, it becomes important that you manage your orders more precisely.
Statistics suggest that as many as 65 percent of the customers stop purchasing from a brand, following just one negative experience.
To make sure this doesn’t happen to you, order management is something you must swear by.
Now that you know what is order management, let’s look further. You must also try to understand why there is a need for order management in eCommerce.
The Need for Order Management?
The need for order management begins right from the time you receive an order. It helps you grow your business seamlessly.
After all, you won’t want your customers to leave your brand because you could have managed the order fulfillment process a little better.
Streamlined Operations
One of the most profound benefits of order management is in terms of streamlining operations. Right from receiving the order to picking, packing, and shipping it, order management takes care of everything.
It wouldn’t be incorrect to say that the order management lies at the heart of your operational platform. Not only will it help you monitor your different systems but also plan resources more efficiently.
This helps in creating seamless communications with improved workflows. With proactive measures, order management can assist a business to reduce the margin for errors. As a result of which the efficiency is improved by many folds.
For example, in case of any emergencies, when there is an irregularity in inventory, order management comes to the rescue. With order management in place, a business will know in real-time, which of your suppliers are failing. Alternatively, it will also help you realize if one or more of your stock is low.
The result of streamlining operations via order management is that a business can ship faster. Moreover, they can deliver orders to their customers at much lower and optimized costs.
Flexible Growth
Order management ensures the flexible growth of your business. It makes sure to implement a flexible architecture. This facilitates the proper functioning of the individual units. While thier overall function in collaboration with each other is ensured.
Moreover, order management ensures that one module of your business perfectly fits with the other. The integration is smooth and everything is standing up to its work functionalities.
Another reason how order management helps flexible growth is by enabling scalability. In other words, many new modules can be added to your online business to help it grow.
Be it adding a new product or kitting two products together as a promotional strategy, order management can help you have it all.
Superior Customer Experience
Every business wants their customers to be satisfied and happy with the products. Moreover, with growing competition, it has become a necessity to provide superior customer experience. With so many online sellers fighting for the same customers, the ball lands in favor of the one whose customer experience lies unparalleled.
Order management helps in achieving an unparalleled growth scenario with the customer. Not only do you get to ship products within time, but also deliver them safely.
So, let’s say that you committed to fulfilling an order within 3 days on your website. Now, when it comes to prioritizing an order, you need a management system in place. This helps you realize which of your orders is important and needs to be fulfilled immediately. SO, with that information, you can pick, pack and ship your orders instantly.
Another important aspect of customer experience is personalization. Order management helps in eCommerce personalization. If you’ve never head of personalization, don’t worry. It refers to presenting the kind of products and content to the customer that they are already looking for in the market. So, let’s say that if a customer wants to purchase a pair of shoes, you reach out to them with the same.
The question is how to anticipate what the customer wants? While it is indeed difficult to figure out product ideas, as it relies heavily on data analytics.
Order management can help you personalize the experience by improving the order fulfillment cycle. Some order management systems are so advanced that they help businesses solve the problems of their customers in real-time.
For example, if a customer is having trouble in proceeding with their cart on your eCommerce store. In such situations, an order management system can help manually take over your customer’s cart and resolve the issues.
Moreover, if your business is big enough, order management can help you fulfill the orders in the shortest time. It will prompt you which warehouses are the closet to your customers’ delivery location, helping you ship at the lowest possible costs. Alternatively, this would also ensure faster delivery.
Why Choose an Order Management Platform?
Managing your orders on a platform can help you leverage all the benefits of order management. IT can take your business to new heights. Moreover, it fills the gaps between you and your customer.
Let’s take a look at other reasons why you must have an order management platform for your business-
Efficient Tool for Your Organization
Order management platform is quintessentially an efficient tool for your business. It manages all your orders and streamlines operations. In other words it deploys the best of order management for your online business.
It is also an efficient tool for your sales rep. If you have a large team, an order management tool allows them many features. For example, it will allow them to login, add new orders, as well as take new orders in the field. Moreover, your sales rep can also place orders directly and communicate with customers.
Additionally, when your customer is stuck with a problem, your sales rep can talk to your customers. They can also take manual control of your customer’s accounts and solve the problem for you.
No More Paper Processes
Managing your orders reduces the dependency on any paper processes in your business. They help your business reach unparalleled heights by reducing any manual work.
Order management systems provide a gateway for your new data to sync with the existing one. There is a seamless integration in place that reduces redundant work. Moreover, this also helps in ensuring the efficiency of the back system.
As a result of this, errors that are induced in taking notes and maintaining any paperwork are reduced.
Better Customer Service
There’s nothing like a customer service with an order management platform. The platform helps you take care of all the nuances of order fulfillment. Moreover, the overall efficiency in your processes is reflected in a superior experience to your customers.
Your customer sales team can view all the order details of your customer. Moreover, they can also look into the customer’s account for detailed information. This results in a seamless order management process. As a result, for your customer this could mean a deeper insight into their issues and better knowledge of their actions.
Real-time Stock Control
One of the best benefits of an order management system is that it offers real time stock control. With a dedicated module for inventory, you can take a look at your stocks in real time.
This means you can have a look at your inventory and try to understand what’s working in your favour and what’s not. Additionally, whichever channel you sell from, your inventory is updated in real time across all channels. Therefore, it won’t let your customers place an order if something is out of stock.
Alternatively, since you will be monitoring your inventory levels more closely, you’ll never run out of a product.
Convenient CRM
A key aspect of a business is customer relationship management. In other words, businesses need to have healthy relationships to grow in the market. If your business has been lacking any of these in the past, an order management system gives you the opportunity to establish your dominance in the field.
With a system providing better CRM, you get to feel closer to your customers. In other words, you help your customers answer any queries with ease. Since you already know about their account and their order details, it becomes excessively easier to understand them better.
Moreover, if a customer calls you regarding an issue, you can simply log into their account to answer their queries better. This way you won’t have to ask them too many questions and already have an idea about their issue.
Better Clarity of Accounts
An order management system gives you a better clarity of your business accounts. For example, the orders that have already been invoiced can be sent to your accounting software.
This can help you manage your sales and accounting departments carefully. Even though these are independent, they will be closely working under one umbrella with ease.
As a result of this, you will be able to be on track on your accounts as well as receive better clarity. Once you have clarity on your accounts, this will directly reflect in your business as it will tell you where your majority of costs are going.
Alternatively, you can use cost optimization techniques to stay on top of them.
Order Management for Business Growth!
Managing an online business can be stressful. However, with proper order management, this can be sorted out to a great extent. Not only do you get to perform better in the market but also stand apart from your competitors. Moreover, your customers are always in the awe of your efficiency and commitment.
Remember that order management is the key to fulfilling customer promises. Therefore, the early you have a system in place for your business, the more profits you enjoy.
