Need A Post-Order Tracking Portal?

There are many paths to a great digital customer experience. Some manufacturers choose to transition directly from phone, fax and email ordering to eCommerce, while others choose to start with a portal system with SAP data for customer order management.

This second option allows manufacturers to prepare their customers for the digital future by introducing digital interaction for routine SAP order tracking and management. It’s a great first step in digital transformation, and the barrier to entry (and customer adoption) is low.

Here’s how one manufacturer used Corevist Launch to transition SAP order tracking to a self-service system.

Goal: Empower customers to do routine post-order tasks through self-service

3A Composites manufacturers lightweight composite materials for many applications. The company’s customers are used to ordering through phone, fax, email, and EDI. Due to customer preferences and the nature of 3A’s ordering process, the company didn’t feel that eCommerce was a fit.

However, 3A did want to simplify the SAP post-order management process—both for customers, and for their Customer Service department.

Solution: Corevist Launch for SAP order tracking

Corevist Launch is built for this exact scenario. It’s a post-order customer service portal which empowers your dealers and distributors to track orders and invoices without picking up the phone. Your customers can do everything they need within the order tracking solution:

• See and manage order status for all orders in SAP
• Get SAP shipment notifications, status, and tracking numbers
• Reprint order confirmation from SAP in PDF format
• View open items, invoices, and order documents from SAP
• Download order history in CSV format
• Review payment terms
• See month-end statement and real-time credit status

Challenge: Reaching 80% adoption for the order tracking solution

3A Composites faced a challenge in driving adoption of the SAP-integrated order tracking solution. Because customers had never interacted with the company online before, there was concern that customers wouldn’t adopt the new order tracking portal, but would continue calling customer service for routine post-order status checks on orders, shipments, and invoice status.

This challenge isn’t unique. Whatever Corevist Edition you’re rolling out–whether Launch, Grow, or Scale–it’s essential to craft a customer care package for your rollout. At a high level, there are three areas you need to cover:

• Your customer communications plan for the rollout. How will customers hear about the new B2B order management solution? How often will they hear about it, and from whom? What incentive will you offer the customer to help them transition from old processes to digital processes?
• Customer training for those who need it. You shouldn’t assume that all your customers are highly computer-literate. In fact, your customers may need some hand-holding to successfully update their browser, log in and change their password, and get the most out of your B2B order tracking software.
• Transition plan for internal users. In the case of Corevist Launch, your customer service processes are going to change. What high-value tasks are you going to give your customer service team once you’ve taken routine status checks off their plate?

Solution: Automated order confirmation via email linking to the portal

3A Composites knew they needed to communicate the value of the new order tracking portal to customers. Working with the Corevist team, 3A developed a smart approach that demonstrated the portal’s value and ease of use.

When a customer faxes in an order, Corevist Launch sends them an automated email with a link to the status of that order in the order tracking portal. Without disrupting the customer’s preferred ordering method, this process introduces the portal as a helpful addition to processes the customer already uses. It’s a great way to put the customer first and guide them into greater value than they were receiving before.

Results: User adoption soars to 80%

With the email notification (and portal link) going out for each order, customer adoption of the portal soared to 80%.

It turned out that customers actually weren’t opposed to digital—the solution just had to create real value for them. As the numbers show, 3A’s customers find great value in tracking orders through Corevist Launch.

This has led to greater efficiency in 3A’s customer service department, as customers can now self-serve for routine order status checks.

But that’s not the only benefit which 3A Composites is seeing from Corevist Launch. 3A has also introduced customers to a digital experience in a non-disruptive way.

There’s a great lesson here for manufacturers. When you start with a digital customer experience like self-service order tracking, you introduce digital interaction for part of the customer journey, while leaving the ordering process untouched (for now). As customers have great experiences with easy online order tracking, they learn that digital isn’t so bad after all, which prepares them for further expansion of digital touch points, such as invoice payments in the short term (and full eCommerce in the long term).

Extending self-service interaction to include invoice payments

Once you’ve shown customers the value that Corevist Launch offers, you can expand your digital interaction with them. Corevist’s modular design makes it easy to expand your order tracking portal with digital payments. With invoice payments enabled, your customers can not only track orders, but manage the financial side of their accounts through self-service:

• View open invoices, straight from SAP
• Pay open invoices through credit/debit cards, ACH, eCheck, Paypal, and more
• Full invoice and payment history, straight from SAP
• Role-based account privileges
• View month-end statement
• View real-time credit status

The Takeaway

If you can get customers to use a portal to get order updates through self-service, and if you can get them to check invoices online, then you can get them on to pay those invoices online. At that point, you’re only one step away from making the full transition to eCommerce.

The Corevist Commerce suite is designed to facilitate a progression like this. You can launch the solution you need today, then grow your customer experience functionality, one stage at a time. This allows you to do digital transformation through an iterative process, minimizing risk and maximizing value at every stage.