by
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| Jun 17, 2014
Filling a customer's order is a simple enough task 99% of the time.
We fill customer orders all day every day. It's a pretty straightforward process for most businesses.
A customer places and order via phone, email, EDI or fax. A vendor receives an order and processes the information via whatever information systems they have - often with quite a bit of searching, filing, asking, waiting, entering, scrolling, calling, etc.
Then someone in fulfillment gets the information and builds or pulls the product from the shelf. Once that's done, another person alerts shipping, someone boxes and prepares shipping documents, and then finally the order goes out the door.
Reasonably straightforward process, right?
Well, it's kind of the same thing here at VIBCO except much, much faster.
See, while it can take other companies hours or even days to take an order and run it down the entire sales chain, yesterday VIBCO customer service filled out an order in tandem with the customer as he described what he wanted.
No long lead times from customer service to shop, no excessive waiting to move the order through the sales process - none of that.
The order was processed as it being dictated.
How did we do it, you're probably wondering?
Well, here's the story.
All We Needed Was 10 Minutes:
As the work day was beginning to wind down, At about 5:10pm, the office received a customer call.
An outside salesman from one of our distribution partners called looking for (2) two 2P-75-3-230 electric vibrators.
"The salesman was calling from his customer's office in Texas… on our end, we could hear his customer in the background talking about needing the vibrators right away.
At most businesses, "quitting time" means the day is done, close up shop, forward the phones, we're heading home.
And if the phone rings at 4:58, the low-man-on-the-totem pole has to take the final call, or maybe it just gets ignored because nobody is willing to stay.
Not at VIBCO.
We actually take regular customer service calls until 7:30 or 8:00pm EST and then have a 24-hour hotline that connects to people's cell phones!
So, a top-level customer service agent received the call and got right to work - even though the call was technically past her normal working hours.
Now, as the customer was describing his order, VIBCO's customer service was already at work searching for the vibrator model in our inventory including how many were available and at what price for (2) of them.
In just over 10 minutes (10 minutes!), VIBCO customer service was able to:
- Check the inventory list to see if the vibrator was in stock (and it was)
- Confirm the stock of the vibrator with shipping manager and alert the ship team that there was an urgent same day order on its way
- Enter the Order (while the customer was creating his Purchase Order)
- Confirm the drop ship location and shipping method
- Acknowledge the Order to the Customer for verification prior to shipment
And get the vibrators shipped via UPS Next Day Air.
The phone call, the package AND all the important paperwork was squared away by 5:20pm.
Literally, as the salesman was making the purchase order, we were fulfilling the order in tandem with each other.
A direct quote from our customer: "You guys are the only supplier I have where this could happen like this… I appreciate it so much… I wish everyone worked like you guys do."
Once the phones were hung up:
- The package was made up with both vibrators inside
- The box was sealed and taken down the line to shipping
- Picked up by UPS and
ready to go and ready to arrive the next morning to the end user.
In the End…
Another satisfied customer? You betcha.
