Seven in the morning, twenty-two spreadsheets
Before the phones start, a customer services person runs the stock export for each customer, deletes the columns they do not want, reformats the dates the way the customer likes them, and emails the file. Some customers want it daily, some weekly, one wants it twice a day in peak.
Then the calls start anyway. 'Can you tell me how many cases of the 500g we have?' 'Did yesterday's delivery from the factory arrive?' 'What went out to the Birmingham depot on Tuesday?' Each question means looking it up and replying, while the morning's releases wait.
Why reporting is still manual
The WMS has the data. It just was not designed to share it with dozens of stock owners in the format each one wants.
- WMS reports are internal and need tidying before customers see them.
- Each customer wants a different format, product code or unit.
- Customers have no way to look things up themselves.
- Ad hoc questions arrive by phone and email all day.
- The person who builds the reports is a single point of failure.
What manual reporting costs
Customer services time every morning and throughout the day. Mistakes from copying and reformatting, such as a customer receiving another customer's file, which is a data problem as well as an embarrassment. Customers who feel they cannot see their own stock without asking.
How we give customers their own view
- We connect to your WMS through its API or a scheduled data export and keep a copy of stock, receipts and dispatches per customer.
- Each customer gets a portal login showing only their stock: by product, batch, date and location type, plus receipts and dispatches with dates and references.
- Their own product codes and units are shown where you hold a mapping, so the report makes sense to them.
- Scheduled reports are sent in each customer's preferred format and timing, automatically.
- Customers can raise release instructions or queries from the portal, which arrive in your team's queue with the stock context attached.
- Access is controlled per user, and every login and download is logged.
| Customer question | Answered by |
|---|---|
| What do we have in store? | Live stock view |
| Did our delivery arrive? | Receipts list with times |
| What went out on Tuesday? | Dispatch history |
| Can we have our usual report? | Scheduled email in their format |
What mornings look like after
Reports go out on their own. Customers check the portal instead of calling. Customer services deals with genuine questions and exceptions. There is no risk of sending one customer's file to another, because the reports are built per customer by the system.
Prospective customers often ask what visibility they will get. A portal is an easy thing to show them.
Staff who used to build the reports can spend that time on the work customers value more: sorting out a tricky release, calling a customer before a problem reaches them, or helping the store team plan a busy intake.
Is reporting eating your mornings?
- Stock reports are built and emailed by hand.
- Customers phone to ask what they have in store.
- Each customer wants a different format.
- Only one person knows how to build the reports.
- You worry about sending data to the wrong customer.