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Processing a customer's order is the first stage of fulfilment for online sales.

How your business handles orders has a major impact on customer service. It affects initial interest and repeat business. A responsive, automated order-fulfilment process plays a key part in customer satisfaction.

Improving how you handle orders

Improving how you handle orders
You need to know how well your business handles orders before you can improve. You should evaluate how orders are processed by doing the following:

• Find the connections between sales, planning, purchasing, etc. Use flow charts and activity diagrams to map your processes and show the links. There are simple tools available to help you do this.
• Consider linking your systems to those of your customers if you sell to other businesses. Find out what systems they use and work out if yours are compatible.
• Ask staff for their input - they may be able to help you identify problems and solutions.
• Encourage customers to provide feedback on how you handled their orders.

Automating your order processing

Automating your internal systems can help speed up your order processing. It can make things more efficient. It brings together all departments that handle the order, from website or sales reps to warehouse staff. You can:

• Consider using enterprise resource planning software. This can tie in your website with other parts of your business, such as planning, manufacturing and distribution. Decide whether an off-the-shelf package will be enough. It may be worth investing in a system tailored to your industry and supply chain. Cheap, easy-to-implement basic order and stock management software is also available. This might suit some smaller businesses.

• Connect your suppliers and customers to the system. Integrate your system with your website, then customer orders that arrive in your system can be transformed into orders to your suppliers. This is so that they can benefit from faster, more accurate order information. Invoices can be sent and processed automatically.

Maintaining a personal touch

Automating your internal systems may speed up order processing, but remember that some customers may still prefer personal interaction to maintain the customer service experience.

Delivering customer orders quickly and efficiently is vital to any e-commerce service. Delivering what you promised relies on communication between your business processes and fulfilment service.

For those products requiring a physical delivery, you should consider both:

• logistics
• technology 

Distribution channels

Distribution channel options include sending the goods from:

• your own business to your customer
• a local warehouse to your customer
• national distribution centres to your customers
• digital distribution

For businesses selling small numbers of small items, using postal or courier services is likely to work well. Outsourcing the delivery of goods may also be affordable.

Linking processes and tracking goods

Linking processes and tracking orders allow you to predict delivery times earlier on. This lets you keep customers updated on where their goods are and improve your service.

You can achieve this through a single, shared database. Ensure you train your staff keep it up to date at all stages of the process. If you outsource your delivery requirements, many logistics companies offer delivery tracking as part of their service, which you can use to advise customers.

More refined ways of doing this include:

• Enterprise resource planning software, which combines product planning, parts purchasing, maintaining inventories and tracking orders into one system.
• Radio frequency identification (RFID) - this involves tagging objects so that they can be tracked. RFID tags can be read by equipment, at a range of around 6 metres to 30 metres or more, depending on whether they are passive or active tags. While the reading range of passive tags is less, they are considerably less expensive - they also don't use battery power like active tags - and can be disposed of with the product packaging.

Handling customer returns

Customers may want to return goods they have bought online. Some products may be faulty or damaged. 

You must be able to handle returns. This should include giving the customer the option to either:

• get a replacement item 
• have their money refunded 

You should have a process in place to provide either option. Read more about customer protection.

Your business should monitor returns. Find out common reasons customers want returns and refunds so you can address issues. A customer relationship management (CRM) system can help you do this.

If delivery is central to your business then you might want to consider using a third-party logistics and distribution service. This will allow you to focus on your core goals, such as:

• productivity
• profits
• reducing costs 

You could outsource some or all of the following work:

• order handling
• stock control
• storage
• packing
• dispatch of goods
• delivery of goods
• development and management of your website

Why outsource?

As your online sales increase, you may find your business struggling to meet customer expectations for:

• range of products 
• fast, convenient delivery
• low-cost or even free delivery 

Moving large amounts of small orders cost-effectively could be a challenge. Outsourcers can share warehouse space and resources with other online merchants. This keeps costs low. Their experience and scale help them to deliver goods quickly. They may have systems to allow customers to easily track and re-book deliveries.  

Choose the right outsourcing partner

Many businesses find it easy to distribute products in bulk through traditional distribution channels. For example, through wholesalers and retailers. Small online businesses selling directly to customers may find distribution more challenging.  

If you are considering outsourcing your fulfilment services, then you should look for a partner who:

• is dedicated to properly representing your brand name and understands e-commerce market opportunities 
• offers reliable back-end technology to 91Ï㽶»ÆÉ«ÊÓƵ fulfilment 
• has experience in inventory management, logistics, information systems and customer service
• can move goods efficiently to meet customer needs, both now and as your business grows

When your customers buy digital goods online, you can deliver these directly to their computer or device. Examples of digital products include:

• software
• films
• music
• games
• e-books
• reports
• training materials

There are different ways you could deliver digital goods. 

Email

You can deliver smaller files such as directly to the customer via email. The customer receives their book after they purchase the product from your e-commerce site. The advantage of this method is that it is very simple to set up. However, it is time consuming to manually send each product via email. The file can easily be shared with others.

Autoresponse emails 

Once a customer has confirmed their purchase you can connect the order form to an autoresponder. This will send them an automatic email. The email will contain an attachment or a link which they can click to download the digital product.

Download page

It is possible to set up a simple online payment system on your own. After processing the payment, your site will direct the customer to a download page. They can access the file from this page. 

Shopping-cart software

Several e-commerce providers offer software that delivers downloadable product files and protects against unauthorised digital product downloads. This type of software can be integrated with your shopping cart system. After payment, the system will let the customer securely download the file.

Protecting your assets

You will also need to think about how to protect the copyright of your data and prevent illegal sharing or reuse of your digital products. Read more about digital rights management.

The customer could copy and share the product, which poses a risk. This issue is addressed by digital rights management software.

Major problems associated with selling digital products online include:

• protecting the copyright of data
• preventing illegal sharing of this data 

Digital rights management (DRM) technologies address both these issues.

In its most common form, DRM protects intellectual property by either:

• encrypting the data so that only authorised users can access it
• marking the content can be marked with a digital watermark so that it can't be freely distributed

DRM can also track who is using what content, where and when.

DRM can allow the release of multiple versions of a single document. Each group of users can only access the version meant for them. This can be used to restrict disclosure on a need-to-know basis. It could also help create new business for commercial products. TThis could be by offering recipients of a free summary of a research report the chance to pay to upgrade to the full report.

The digital rights that DRM can protect

DRM systems can protect against the following threats to your digital rights:

• Render rights cover acts such as displaying content on a screen or playing it through an audio system. These are protected by encryption systems allowing only the right users to render the content.
• 91Ï㽶»ÆÉ«ÊÓƵ rights relate to the ability to move or copy the data. In this area it can be difficult to balance the rights owner's interests with the user's fair expectations, eg to make backups.
• Derivative work rights cover the ability of users to change or extract the content and use it in another way. We need flexible ways to identify the content's parts, track their uses, and collect payment for them, if necessary. 

Used creatively, DRM can do much more than protect intellectual property and commercially sensitive material - it can also protect and even enhance revenue.

Successful fulfilment of a customer's order is about meeting their expectations. This includes:

• delivering the product in perfect condition
• delivering on time 
• keeping the customer informed of  any delays and new delivery dates

Effective order fulfilment for customer satisfaction

Use the following tips to help ensure that your fulfilment process provides a satisfactory conclusion to the whole purchasing cycle.

• Process all orders at a line-item level, so that each item ordered is identified. This is particularly important when a customer places a multi-item order and one or two of these items are out of stock.
• Personalise orders so that the customer feels that full account has been taken of their individual needs.
• Track the status of the order so that any customer enquiry can be resolved promptly and efficiently. Formal tracking o ensures that any problems are quickly spotted and fixed.
• Communicate the order status to the customer to ensure that they are kept fully informed of progress. Many carriers now use email to tell a customer that an order has been dispatched. Others use online tracking systems allowing the customer to log on to their website and check progress.
• Turn the order around quickly, preferably within 24 hours. The customer will be keen to have their order delivered as soon as possible. Any delay in dispatching it will have a negative impact.
• Consider your packaging not only in terms of ensuring safe delivery but also about branding on the outside. Think about what you can put inside the package that might increase the likelihood of additional sales, eg brochures and special offers.
• Be practical about delivery and ensure that you set realistic customer expectations in terms of the likely delivery date.
• Manage the differing scales of business by ensuring that you have the resources to handle the peaks and troughs of demand.
• Choose the right carrier if you decide to outsource your distribution activity, especially if your product requires special handling. Negotiate guaranteed delivery times with your carrier or set service level agreements that they must meet.
• Handle returns efficiently and effectively and ensure that any customer complaints are quickly and professionally resolved.