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In our previous Actionable Insights blog, we discussed QAD’s Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) Action Center. Next we will provide an overview of the Customer Sales and Service Action Center as well as the associated key performance indicators (KPIs).

Customer Sales and Service Action Center Overview

If you want customers to keep coming back with new orders, every interaction must be perfect. That includes perfect orders delivered on time, of course, but it also includes self-service options, high quality products, custom configurations, prompt service, comprehensive support, and correct invoices. That’s a tall order and keeping track of performance across multiple orders can be complex unless you’re using QAD’s Customer Sales and Service Action Center. The measurements include those for both customer and customer order information, all system-calculated using primary components of Customer Sales and Service.

KPIs for Effective Customer Sales and Service

QAD Action Centers provide analytics to help managers and users monitor metrics and KPIs. Here’s a look at the KPIs included with the Customer Sales and Service Action Center and why they matter to you and your customers.

Number of Open Orders by Due Date

Calculated by comparing the due date of all open orders to today’s date. It details the customer information, including sold to, ship to site and ship from site. Simply looking at the number of late orders can help you identify trends in your processes, but the drill down report also works perfectly as a list of orders to expedite.

Value of Open Orders by Due Date

Displays the value of open orders by due date compared to the current date. This is valuable for visualizing the impact of late orders on revenue as well as on customer satisfaction. It can help to prioritize problems by allowing you to focus on areas with the greatest revenue impact.

Open Orders Summary

This simple chart shows the percent of orders overdue and the number of orders not overdue. As a visual, it is extremely effective in helping to recognize the impact of a problem. Hovering over the “slice” shows the number of orders that make up the percentage, and clicking on a slice will drill down, slicing it further by site, customer, etc.

Orders on Credit Hold

Displays the number of orders on hold by the action status—the reason it’s on hold. This is helpful to examine the effectiveness of credit policies. Some companies also use action status codes to denote non-credit holds status as well, and this practice can help you see the impact of items such as order errors, late new product introductions or improper configurations. These non-credit action status records can point the way to operational problems that may be affecting customer satisfaction.

Top Customers

Displays a bar chart of the top 10 customers in descending order, based on revenue. Hovering over each customer’s record shows the year-to-date sales for each customer. The chart can also show gross margin value or percentage, and users can filter the results by region, customer type or site.

Top Items

A bar chart that displays the top 10 items in descending order based on sales value. Hovering over a bar shows the value of sales year-to-date. The report can also show gross margin by value or percent and filters include product line, item type and product group.

Late Shipments – Average Days Late

Displays the average days late for late shipments, an important indicator of shipping performance. The results are shown by due date, so users can pinpoint a timeframe that may help find reasons for performance changes. The default period is the last seven days, but that can be changed to any period. Filters include customer, item, and site to help hone in on the causes of problems.

Late Payments

Displays all unpaid invoices in a timeline relative to the current day. Standard buckets include more than 90 days, 61-90, 31-60 and 1-30 days, as well as current. Hovering over a bar shows the number of invoices in the group. This can help show the effectiveness of collection processes, but is also a strong indicator of customer satisfaction, since customers often hold off paying invoices when they are not satisfied. It can also help to find problem customers so you can evaluate their credit profile. Filters include due date and customer.

Customer Sales and Service

The Importance of Effective Customer Sales and Service

No company can survive for long if its customers are unhappy, but to paraphrase Tolstoy, “Happy customers are all alike, but every customer is unhappy in their own way.” While the original quote referred to families, it is equally true for customers. Identifying reasons for unhappy customers and eliminating as many of them as possible—as quickly as possible—will have a rapid and positive impact on customer satisfaction as well as company revenue.

QAD Adaptive ERP supports companies in their quest to excel in their industry by ensuring they delight—or at least satisfy—their customers. QAD Customer Management solutions cover every aspect of customer interaction, helping to ensure that processes and procedures don’t get in the way of shipping good products on time and making customers happy.

Which KPIs and metrics are most important to your organization? Learn more about QAD’s predefined Action Centers by role as well as best practices for each.

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