How E-Commerce
Is Changing The CSR:
Online Order
Tracking
Customer
Service Representatives spend much of their time tracking the status of
orders, often triggered by a telephone inquiry from the customer during
business hours. The CSR traditionally obtains the status information: (1) from
the morning production meeting, (2) by phoning the scheduler or someone in the
plant, (3) by referencing untimely job status printouts, or (4) from
computerized shop-floor data-collection information.
In many cases,
the CSR must go on a “fact-finding mission” for the answer and then call the
customer back. Using this conventional process, a customer may sometimes wait
hours before receiving an answer.
By integrating
your management system, order entry application, shop-floor data collection
application, and shipping system with the E-Commerce system, a customer can
view his order status right over the Web-24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365
days a year. With integrated shipping software such as UPS WorldShip or FedEx,
customers can track their shipments by clicking on the package tracking number
which is hyperlinked to the carrier's web site. These E-Commerce features
totally take the CSR out of the status inquiry function, until the customer
has a problem with the results!
There have
been many debates regarding permitting customers to view production status
information. The companies who are consistent at on time deliveries do not
mind allowing their customers to see when the job came off press or when it
shipped. Other companies strictly do not want customers to see any status
information. Regardless, many E-Commerce systems enable the printer to control
the level of job status detail a customer can actually view on the web.
