Overview
For most retailers, the days of dealing with only anonymous shoppers are gone. The opportunity to capture customer information as part of a transaction provides a wealth of opportunities for building lasting relationships but also introduces complexities in ensuring outstanding service. Escalate Order Management addresses all of the customer-specific services retailers provide in a common framework including:
- Website, Phone and Catalog Orders
- Endless Aisle orders in the store
- Special / Configured Product Orders
- Pick Up in Store
- Ship From Store
- Transfers of merchandise for a customer
- Alterations, Installation, Repair
- Requests for Information
- Returns
Escalate Order Management solutions provide retailers the visibility and control required to seamlessly manage the full lifecycle of orders and services across multiple channels and fulfillment nodes. Order Management includes tight integration with Escalate Contact Center, e-Commerce and Clienteling functionality including order capture, order tracking, cancellations, returns, and refund processing. Extending beyond the traditional distribution center, Escalate Order Management allows the retailer to leverage their suppliers, partners and stores as additional vehicles for meeting customer demand.
By providing a holistic view of the retail fulfillment network, retailers can increase fill rates, lower the cost of inventory, reduce manual processes and respond faster to exceptions.
From browsing for products through processing returns and credits, Escalate Order Management provides all the tools necessary to meet your customer expectations every time. Overview
For most retailers, the days of dealing with only anonymous shoppers are gone. The opportunity to capture customer information as part of a transaction provides a wealth of opportunities for building lasting relationships but also introduces complexities in ensuring outstanding service. Escalate Order Management addresses all of the customer-specific services retailers provide in a common framework including:
- Website, Phone and Catalog Orders
- Endless Aisle orders in the store
- Special / Configured Product Orders
- Pick Up in Store
- Ship From Store
- Transfers of merchandise for a customer
- Alterations, Installation, Repair
- Requests for Information
- Returns
Escalate Order Management solutions provide retailers the visibility and control required to seamlessly manage the full lifecycle of orders and services across multiple channels and fulfillment nodes. Order Management includes tight integration with Escalate Contact Center, e-Commerce and Clienteling functionality including order capture, order tracking, cancellations, returns, and refund processing. Extending beyond the traditional distribution center, Escalate Order Management allows the retailer to leverage their suppliers, partners and stores as additional vehicles for meeting customer demand.
By providing a holistic view of the retail fulfillment network, retailers can increase fill rates, lower the cost of inventory, reduce manual processes and respond faster to exceptions.
From browsing for products through processing returns and credits, Escalate Order Management provides all the tools necessary to meet your customer expectations every time.
Intelligent Order Broker
Retailers have long focused on the optimization challenge of efficiently moving merchandise through their distribution network and into stores to maximize in-stock levels while maintaining high inventory turns. The logistics of reserving and delivering merchandise to the right location to meet individual cross-channel consumer demand is a newer problem, however, but one that can prove equally daunting without the right tools.
In addition to traditional home package delivery, many consumers today expect retailers to support a PickUpInStore option and more and more retailers are viewing the store as a cost-effective alternative fulfillment node for shipping customer orders when warehouse inventory is not available. Add in dropship suppliers and 3rd party fulfillment partners and the options for meeting a customer’s product demand expand significantly.
Escalate Order Management includes a real-time Intelligent Order Broker that evaluates each customer order during order capture and determines based on the service level desired the most cost-effective way to satisfy customer expectations while maintaining the highest margin on the overall order.
Escalate's IOB engine optimizes the fulfillment network in real-time providing immediate feedback to customers on expected delivery dates and ensuring lowest cost decisions.
The Intelligent Order Broker combines a profile of each distribution center, store, supplier and 3PL provider along with the most current inventory levels to make immediate decisions on the optimal method of fulfilling the line items on a specific order both individually and in aggregate. In addition, the IOB calculates expected delivery time for each line item and provides visibility to this information for the consumer prior to their completing the order. Once an order is submitted, inventory reservations are immediately applied in the appropriate merchandising, warehouse management or store operations applications.
Benefits
- Optimizes fulfillment decisions incorporating cost, service and labor constraints
- Improves inventory turns through efficient use of most effective fulfillment node for meeting demand
- Improves customer experience by providing real-time guidance on availability and delivery dates
Features
- Incorporate into any website, order entry vehicle through real-time API / SOA calls.
- Support for full range of fulfillment optimization variables including:
» Product costs
» Handling charges
» Shipping charges by location
» Safety stock
» Labor
» Inventory availability
» Handling and Shipping Lead Times
» Contract Requirements
- Optimizes both individual line items as well as overall order evaluating splitting lines between nodes as well as shipping complete from one location
- Provides alternative methods for meeting demand ( i.e. available for pickup in a store in close proximity )
Order Management
The steps required between capturing retail customer demand and final delivery of their merchandise are myriad and complex. Escalate Order Management solutions honor each individual order as a contract between retailer and customer and monitors each step of the process to ensure that customer expectations are met.
Whether the problem arises from a credit card decline, missing inventory, delayed shipments or a change in customer requirements, Escalate Order Management takes corrective action and alerts appropriate personnel as required. Tight integration between Escalate e-Commerce, Escalate Clienteling and Escalate Contact Center provide retailers the visibility and control required to manage the full lifecycle of orders for customers across multiple channels.
Native integration with Escalate Relationship Marketing provides personalized service and communication. Collateral may be customized by customer profile, customer history, retail events or any criteria desired. Visibility into the order lifecycle provides unique marketing opportunities including capturing lost demand. An example of how retailers have used this integration is outlined below.
In-Stock Inventory Notification
Occasionally, a customer desires an item that is out-of-stock in all fulfillment nodes. The interoperability of Escalate solutions can add that item to the customer’s profile and notify the sales associate (or customer directly) when the item becomes available. This ensures that you don’t lose the opportunity for a sale, even when you don’t have the merchandise.
Benefits
- Improved customer service through visibility at the website, call center and store into granular status of each line item on an order
- Reduced call center costs of up to 15% through direct control over order lifecycle
- Increased average order size of 5-10% from finding salable inventory and handling backorders and preorders
- Reduced returns by reacting real-time to order exceptions and responding with alternative fulfillment options
Features
- Visibility of order line items from order capture through delivery confirmation
- Maintain orders before or after routing
- Visibility into capabilities of fulfillment nodes – understands at what point orders can be modified or cancelled base upon the systems in place
- Optimization of carrier selection based on service levels
- e-mail order confirmation and order status notification
- Customizable workflow for complex items requiring prep or handling
- Exception Management & Monitoring
- RMA and Returns Processing
- Customer Accommodations and Price Over-rides
- Operations console provides view into order queues by fulfillment node
Order Fulfillment
Order Fulfillment provides retailers the transparency and control required to seamlessly manage the fulfillment process of customer orders through multiple paths – the retailer's own distribution centers, brick-and-mortar stores, drop ship vendors and third-party logistics providers. Retailers gain order visibility and virtual inventory, while fulfillment partners and locations can ship orders more efficiently.
Orders can now be easily shipped or picked up from any location to ensure the most cost-effective and timely fulfillment of each customer order. Thin-client portals provide access to branded packing slips and shipping labels for suppliers lacking the means to process orders electronically. EDI and XML support provides an efficient means for automatic communication between Order Management and a vendor’s ERP for the more technologically advanced suppliers.
Regardless of whether the portal or EDI/XML is employed, full collaboration between fulfillment node and retailer is maintained including line item status, expected delivery date, carrier package ID and reconciliation of the shipments, purchase orders and supplier invoice.
Leveraging drop ship vendor inventories and product assortment significantly reduces inventory carrying costs and can provide a cost-effective way to support "endless aisle" special orders for the retail customer. Tracking these orders from the point of purchase through customer delivery is now integrated across former functional "silos", and Executive Dashboards deliver real-time visibility to all customer service representatives and management.
Benefits
- Capture lost sales through expanded product assortment encompassing store and supplier inventories
- Reduced inventory carrying costs
- Consistent branded collateral and visibility into line item status
- Quickly launch temporary peak season fulfillment locations using thin-client portal
Features
- Combine store pickup, home delivery, supplier dropship on single order
- Carrier-compliant indicia
» FedEx
» USPS
» UPS
» Canadian Post
- Browser-based UI to execute pick-pack-ship operations
- Suitable for both drop ship vendors and fulfillment centers
- Thin-client access to retailer-branded packing slips, shipping labels, and other documents
- Support for intermediate and final ship-to locations and other complex orders
- Supports backorder, cancel and partial ship
- Order acknowledgement and other statuses in real time
- Share forecast and inventory commitment prior to taking orders
- Vendor performance / compliance analytics standard
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