Timely business order processing is key for a successful small business. When you first started out it seemed easy to answer emails and confirm appointments or orders very quickly, right? Yet as your business grows, it’s inevitable that your orders and emails start to pile up and you’re simply too busy to deal with it all as quickly as you’d like. But nurturing a good sales order processing procedure within your business will ensure that your customers are kept happy and your business builds a good name for itself.
What are the benefits to outsourced order taking?
If you are looking to outsource order taking there are many tangible benefits that you can take advantage of. Perhaps the most important one is that it frees up you and your sales team to focus on bringing in new business. After all there’s no point your team working hard to bring orders in if they simply languish in the company ‘in’ tray for weeks afterward.
Ensuring that your invoice and order processing is being dealt with quickly and efficiently not only builds strong new relationships with first time customers but also provides you assurance that your existing customers are kept happy. Whether your business is a B2B model or a B2C, you’ll find that having a section of your business dedicated to timely order processing, even if your order processing staff are offsite, will give your business the competitive edge in a number of ways.
1. Improve your bottom line
Ultimately, processing orders quickly, and freeing up your sales team to focus on bringing new business in, means you’ll be making more money. And at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about, right?
2. Scale up quickly
During busy periods it’s inevitable that order volume will increase. This means that at the drop of a hat you have to find additional resource in order to be able to process orders as quickly as you would normally. For most businesses, being that agile is impossible. By outsourcing your order processing, orders can be actioned more quickly in general, but you will also be able to tap into their extra resource and scale up during peak periods, making your business more agile and responsive to market needs and seasonality.
3. Build trust
If you have order processing staff ensuring that all orders are being dealt with efficiently, you will develop trust with your customers as they come to know that they can rely on you to deliver what they need, quickly and professionally.
4. Staying lean
Small businesses have to run hot if they want to survive these days, and this means cutting out all unnecessary duties, roles and infrastructure. When you outsource your invoice and order processing you won’t need to worry about paying for sick days, holidays or training. Your outsourced partner will take care of all of that. Better yet, you can expand your business without needing to add more costly senior management positions to oversee your operation.
When should I consider outsourcing my business order processing?
Well, it may not be necessary within the first few months of your business starting out, but the rule of thumb is that outsourcing should be considered when you find your orders are beginning to sit in the in tray for more than a couple of days. Look at your current sales order processing procedure and ask yourself a few questions:
- Firstly, is it working for you and your customers?
- Secondly, is it cost effective?
- Thirdly, does it enable you to run the kind of business that you want to?
If the answer to any of these is no, then it’s time to consider outsourcing.
Services that could provide offsite solutions to your invoicing time and expense issues include virtual assistant companies like our own. If you think hiring a virtual assistant service could be right for your business you could also benefit from them providing other associated services such as credit control and payment chasing or small business answering services. Also try our blog on helpful hints to control credit and cash flow in small businesses if you are looking for help in that area.
If you’re looking to outsource order taking, we hope that you found our post on the potential benefits helpful. To learn more about our UK virtual assistants contact us by calling 080 994 9016 or use our contact form in the menu above.