This article outlines suggested actions when preparing for a customer meeting:
Prior to the metting:
- Pre-qualify the client.
- Log in to the Partner Portal.
- From the Welcome to Your Partner Portal page, click the Marketing Resources link.
- The Marketing Resources page displays.
- From the Marketing Resources page, download any relevant presentations.
During the meeting:
- Ask other business-related questions than eCommerce.
- This allows you to consider longer term strategies. In many instances, businesses can't scale due to process inefficiencies, so consider strategies for helping the customer solve these issues.
Ask questions like:
- Orders
- How many total orders do you receive a day? Which sales channels do you receive these orders from?
- If In-store - Do you use a cash register, spreadsheet or a POS system?
- If online - Are invoices automatically sent to the customer upon on order submission?
- Marketplaces - are these processed via the marketplace, or linked to another system - i.e their eComm or POS system?
- Process orders - i.e from the point of receiving an order how is sent via the print out pick slips.
- What are the steps once an order is received?
- What systems are manually updated - Do you update your accounting platform and other systems that hold stock levels manually?
- How do you pack the order? For example, Does one person fulfil all orders or do you use bins and locations within the warehouse?
- Do you manually print pick slips or use an automated system?
- Shipping
- Do you use couriers, manually post the items via the post office, or use your own courier drivers?
- How do you do pricing up for a courier on orders?
- What courier(s) are you planning to use?
- How do you print labels?
- Do you submit a manifest to couriers?
- How do you send tracking information back to the customers who have ordered?
- Manage stock
- How do you manage stock?
- Where is your supplier data held?
- Do you receive automatic stock reports when items are low?
- Hosting / IT infrastructure
- Do you have your own hosting infrastructure or is it 'in the cloud'?
- Are you using any cloud-based solutions or are they all server based?
After the meeting:
- What actions require follow up?
- Do you need to contact Maropost Commerce for further information?