Case Studies - Eltons
Office supplies company improves customer service and reduces costs...
Eltons are a Birmingham-based company that provides a complete service to office users, supplying stationery, furniture and seating, janitorial and catering requirements, computer consumables, office machines, print and design.
The business was established in the 1970s and operates in highly competitive markets. Responsiveness to customer orders and efficient customer-facing systems are therefore of crucial importance.
Eltons were experiencing severe difficulties with a software package, as a consequence of having to accept an upgrade from a company that had bought out the original vendor. This superseding product proved to be highly inflexible and unreliable, in contrast to the earlier version that had worked well over a number of years.
Eltons' customer service was suffering with telephone orders and related queries taking an undue amount of time to process, and with many pricing queries leading to unacceptable numbers of credit note requests. Customers were being lost as a result of these problems.
Discrepancies on multiple orders between Eltons and their suppliers also meant that replenishment orders generated by the system were often incorrect, leading to gross overstocking on some lines.
This reached a point where the automatic replenishment system was no longer trusted, resulting in manual intervention, with management time being wasted on a daily basis.
Having spent £60,000 over two years on the superseding system and its maintenance, Eltons decided that something had to be done. DBL were asked to develop custom software that would restore Eltons' previous reputation for prompt and reliable service.
DBL approached this by examining the original software that had worked so well for Eltons. Careful evaluation of telesales customer interactions enabled processing routines to be simplified while, at the same time, ensuring that all functional requirements were met.
Historical information needed as part of dialogues with customers was conveniently available at the touch of a function key.
As a result, Eltons now have a system that is very easy to use and tailored perfectly to suit the order handling team.
There has been an immediate benefit through the dramatic increase in order processing speed, with transaction times being reduced by 80%.
In the first month of operating the new system, only two invoice queries were received, compared to 60 queries in the previous month.
As a consequence of these efficiencies, Eltons were able to save six staff and vacate an office area of 4,000 sq ft.
A number of prompt features were introduced, enabling the sales team to promote quantity break prices and special offers, which resulted in sales revenues increasing by 6%.
Safeguards were built in that allowed the profitability of individual order lines to be monitored against standard margins, ensuring that sales effort was directed towards more profitable business.
The new system is very easy to understand, so much so that the 15 year old daughter of one of the Directors was able to use the system straight away!
Discrepancies on replenishment orders with suppliers were completely eradicated, resulting in stockholding reductions and big savings in management time.
Eltons are so confident with stock order linkages that they now have the option of delivering to a customer direct from the supplier, bypassing Eltons' transport, and enlarging the company's effective trading area.
Further enhancements to the system have since taken place, providing customers with the facility to place orders electronically. Customers are provided with software that includes their own pricing and order history information. The added convenience of this means that customers are less inclined to shop around.
Overall, these developments have given Eltons a significant edge in a market where customer loyalty is hard to achieve.
"We have been extremely impressed with DBL's attitude and availability when we have encountered specific problems regarding any IT issue. We have found the service provided to be of the highest standard and indeed the care taken by DBL staff to ensure a full understanding of our operations at the concept stage was extremely encouraging, which resulted in applications that really do work."
Mel Charles, Managing Director, Eltons