Online customer service and the paper
industry
Excellent customer
service, the ability to respond quickly and correctly to a customer's questions is
essential today, and will be even more important tomorrow for any company that wants to
stay in business.
Although the paper industry
has been traditionally production oriented, it is now shifting its focus toward the
customer. To reach profit targets, the industry is not just increasing output — it is
attempting to listen to its customers, respond to their needs, and offer superior customer
service. As many annual reports show, customer satisfaction is becoming a top priority for
more and more companies and a driving force behind new business practices in the industry.
The reasons for this trend? Increased global competition, the ability of different
suppliers to deliver the same product, and the realization that meeting ever changing
customer needs is crucial to market survival in the long term.
This is where on-line customer
service comes into play. A fully integrated system like Movex Paper considerably improves
your possibilities to support customers online.
Unlike discrete, stand-alone
business systems, where several different people must be involved in answering even simple
questions, Movex Paper offers you advantages that can only be provided by a fully
integrated system specially tailored to the needs of the paper industry.
With Movex Paper, you can
achieve your goals in this area so you can get your answers right — in real time, not
next time. Movex Paper helps you:
Respond to customer
inquiries online, without time-consuming searches in other departments or systems
Minimize the number of lost
orders due to slow retrieval of information
Determine accurate
quantities and achievable delivery dates, and thereby optimize planning
Improve customer service and
overall customer satisfaction
What is online customer
service?
Providing excellent customer
service involves all activities that make customers feel they obtain added value when
working with a certain supplier. This means delivering the requested quantity and quality
on time, every time. It also involves accurate invoicing and responding to customer
inquiries at lightning speed. As with other industries, the concept of online customer
service is also gaining ground within the paper industry. A customer should be able to
receive a correct answer immediately, whether over the phone or online. Typical questions
are:
When can you deliver what I
order, and at what price?
What is the status of my
order?
What do you have in stock?
Why did my bill show a
different price than what I was quoted?
Of course, a quick response
can lead to an order right on the spot, and minimize the risk that the customer will shop
around before you find the time to provide an answer.
But simply finding the correct
answer poses a challenge. It can mean searching in different systems or contacting
different people in different departments, jeopardizing your ability to provide an online
response and land an order. This way of doing business often requires a change in
organization, personnel, and sales and production philosophies, and so places new demands
on your IT system.
How Movex Paper responds to
your needs
Movex Paper is a fully
integrated system that offers manufacturing and distribution companies in the paper
industry a total solution for enterprise management. It provides all the features and
functions needed for human resources, finance, ordering and invoicing, planning,
purchasing, production, inventory, transportation, and more. And since all information is
gathered in one place and globally available, it is readily accessible for anyone needing
to make quick decisions for customer order promising.
Movex Paper also offers
powerful support for online customer service so that you can meet the needs of your
customers. It lets you access information directly from the order function without having
to access another system. Its capabilities are described in more detail below.
Order entry
Being able to quickly enter
quotes and orders is normally a crucial activity. Movex Paper provides credit control and
product configuration during order entry, so you can easily define a product with
user-defined attributes to fit specific customer requirements. The system automatically
retrieves basic data from custom templates and product information for each product or
product/customer, thereby minimizing manual errors and time-consuming entry tasks. It is
always possible to copy an existing order or to convert a quote into one or more customer
orders.
Available-to-promise (ATP) and
capacity-to-promise (CTP)
Movex Paper supports both
available-to-promise and capacity-to-promise across multiple sites, machines and
warehouses.
Making a confident delivery
commitment for the requested products and quantities can be one of the most problematic
moments in online customer service. You must first know how the order will be filled
(whether from stock, through a subcontractor, in-house manufacture, etc.) and then
consider the various lead times before arriving at a final delivery date. Movex Paper
offers a flexible solution that helps you determine ATP and CTP in line with your company’s
production and distribution practices. Different options available at order entry allow
you to quickly determine a delivery date online and book the necessary resources. For
products that are either sold or issued from external inventories, you can determine ATP
using simple searches in internal or external inventories. You can search by:
The requested product in
stock for direct delivery –– this can be allocated automatically or manually.
An alternative product in
stock for direct delivery.
An alternative product in
stock that can be converted into the desired product. Movex Paper provides flexible search
capabilities using product attributes to find the right product. You can even directly
order rework.
For make-to-order products
fulfilled via CTP, delivery dates can be determined based on a variety of different
factors:
Available production
capacity in the rough-cut capacity plan across multiple sites and machines
Substitution of another
planned order (for example, a stock order) for the current customer order
Available raw material and
semi-finished products as well as purchase lead time
Planned supply (planned
production and purchases)
Also, you can determine
available transportation capacity for the requested delivery date and book the
transportation. An order can be supplied in different ways: for example, a partial issue
from stock can be performed if needed for an express order while the remaining quantity is
manufactured for later delivery.
Pricing
Pricing is essential for
certain types of products that must be configured and costed before a firm price can be
given. For other products, a set price schedule suffices, or the price may already be
connected to a contract. Movex Paper offers total support for pricing either manually or
automatically. Prices can be:
Copied from previous orders.
Based on a general price
schedule for the product or a customer-specific price schedule in any number of pricing
units. Promotions can also be managed.
Based on a unique
configuration of the current order line. The system performs advanced calculations using
attributes so that a base price can be obtained from a calculation of product cost and
overhead, and a final price can be set considering the desired sales margin. These types
of calculations normally done by a planner can, to a large extent, be brought to the front
office using Movex Paper.
Regardless of the method used,
you can always check where a price originated, further enabling you to respond efficiently
to price related questions.
Movex Paper allows you to set
prices in many different ways at order entry. For example, you can configure, cost and
then price products taking into account the desired sales margin.
Order status
Companies in the paper
industry often need to offer their customers real-time order status information. Customers
may want to know if their orders will be completed on time, if early delivery is possible,
or how much remains to be delivered. Movex Paper offers the following capabilities in this
area:
Order overview. You decide
what to view — on order, planned, manufactured, planned for loading, shipped, invoiced.
Order details. You can view
the order status at each stage of production, from production-planned to produced.
Drill-down capabilities. You
can view related production orders in detail to determine when production is planned.
Besides production
information, you can also overview inventory availability and analyze on-hand balance
according to user-defined criteria, such as a combination of a specific quality, basis
weight and width.
Movex Paper can track the
progress of each customer order through every step of the production chain, from order
entry to invoicing and payment.
Delivery and invoice
information
Movex Paper lets you easily
respond to questions from customers about their deliveries and invoices. It lets you:
Obtain an overview of all
orders placed and their status
Check which orders are in
transit
Check which lots each
invoice covers
The sales ledger lets you
instantly view payment status information either for a specific invoice or for a customer.
Quality issues
Movex Paper provides full
traceability forward and backward. This includes tracing products of the same type, such
as multiple reels that are used to produce a lot.
Product quality is a key issue
for many customers that often requires a more detailed investigation of potential
problems. Through the use of a unique product ID, Movex Paper offers you forward and
backward traceability so you can identify the source of any problem. You can view all
related stock transactions and, using attributes, provide instant information about a lot.
If a unique ID is not available, user-defined criteria such as order number, quality or
delivery date can be used to search for the lot in question.
How your company can benefit
As companies in the paper
industry are realizing, effective customer service is becoming vital for the bottom line.
In turn, business systems must be able to respond to companies with a customer-centric
focus. With Movex Paper, you can achieve your goals in this area so you can get your
answers right — in real time, not next time. Movex Paper helps you:
Respond to customer
inquiries online, without time-consuming searches in other departments or systems
Minimize the number of lost
orders due to slow retrieval of information
Determine accurate
quantities and achievable delivery dates, and thereby optimize planning
Improve customer service and
overall customer satisfaction
Movex Paper offers you the
advantages that can only be provided by a fully integrated system specially tailored to
the needs of the paper industry. One with the power and flexibility to meet your needs, so
you can meet the needs of your customers. Movex Paper can do just this, letting you
improve online customer service and enjoy the benefits. |
