Software: Order Entry System Reduces Shipping Errors

Problem: Jack Stack Barbecue wanted to reduce shipping errors due to improperly keyed data in its contact center.

Solution: The company implemented Data Management Associates’ MACH2K as its order entry software.

Results: Order entry errors were reduced by more than 50 percent; shipping errors nearly were eliminated.

Jack Stack Barbecue, a multichannel gourmet barbecue products merchant, implemented in 2004 Data Management Associates’ (DMA) MACH2K order management software to reduce order entry errors.

A catalog company born in 2003 as a side business to three family-owned restaurants, Jack Stack Barbecue used an order entry system (OES) that required customer service reps (CSRs) to scroll through a series of pages to process and verify each order. Dale Johnson, director of customer services for the Kansas City, Mo.-based food merchant, estimates that 2 percent of all orders were entered into the system incorrectly. As Jack Stack CSRs processed up to 4,000 orders per week during the company’s busy season, Johnson recalls that errors began to pile up.

While a few errors typically were misspelled names, others involved staff incorrectly entering item numbers, or misapplying discount codes and gift certificates, says Johnson. He further notes that due to the gift friendly nature of Jack Stack products, a customer often would provide a receiving address that was different from his or her billing address, which resulted in shipping errors when staff didn’t properly verify these addresses. Additionally, Internet orders were delivered to the contact center as e-mails, which CSRs then manually entered into the OES, creating another opportunity for order entry error.

Johnson knew a more streamlined OES would make it easier for his CSRs to verify customer information. In interviewing vendors offering possible solutions, he favored systems where all data for a particular order were entered on a single page. Other delimiting factors in his search included: