Putting Your Customers' Needs First

associated with eliminating manual work effort. The number of orders and/or dollar value of an order is not as significant as the NUMBER of ORDER lines that you eliminated via promoting EDI and/or web order entry!

• Build Partnerships with your Customers

The best way to solidify a relationship with your customers is to find common ground where both you and your customer benefits MORE by working together than working separately. There are numerous ways that a company can easily accomplish this objective, but here are three rather straightforward examples: o Promoting EDI and Web Order Entry versus Manual Order Entry – obviously the company benefits if their customers send in their orders electronically rather than faxing them into customer service for manual entry. But the customers also benefit by using EDI or web order entry in that their orders are processed quicker with fewer errors. It is a Win-Win for both parties, but you must continually promote the benefits in a positive manner to facilitate this conversion process, so you can totally eradicate manual order entry. o End User Shipment Notification – selling products via distribution is essentially a two-step selling process; your company sells product to the distributor who then resells the item at a marked-up price to the end customer. In many instances, the distributor does not have the subject item(s) in stock so they must be ordered on the manufacturer and then the manufacturer must drop ship the item(s) directly to the end customer. Normally, this process would require follow-up phone calls from both the end user to the distributor and then from the distributor back to the manufacturer to check on the shipping status of the order. Now, if the manufacturer has the distributor identify the email address of the end customer at the time of order entry via EDI or web order entry, then the manufacturer can automatically notify the end customer DIRECTLY via email when the item(s) ship along with the related tracking information (likewise, the Distributor can be notified as well, if desired). Again, this is a tremendous time saver for both the manufacturer and the distributor and even the ultimate customer. Here the manufacturer has designed a solution to an ongoing service issue that benefits everyone. The positive feedback from the end customer to the distributor on this service benefit along with the reduction in needless phone calls will make this service solution a winner for all parties involved. o Where to Buy – When users are trying to figure out what item they need to buy or simply searching for a local source of supply, they will typically start at the manufacturer’s web site for this information. Once the end user locates the catalog number they wish to purchase, they normally want to know whether it is in stock or if the item is made-to-order, they want to know what the lead time will be. End Users as well as consumers usually have preferred places they wish to use when buying