Sales Department: Reactive Sales

High Level Activities / Processing

  1. Respond to Customer Enquiries for quotations for decorating services.
  2. Record Customer enquiry details and accompanying correspondence / assets (email, artwork, correspondence)
  3. Sanity check customer enquiry for operational feasibility / stock availability (liaison with Suppliers) - Communicate with client if amendments are required before proceeding to quote
  4. Create quotations using TOT pricing data in response to customer requests.
  5. Follow up on sent quotations to maximise conversion decisions - obtain client approval of quotation.
  6. Perform credit validations to ensure that proposed quotation is within financially acceptable terms:-
    1. If credit limit exists and is / will be breached - obtain approval from Accounts department
    2. If no credit limit exists, request and confirm full payment from customer before proceeding.
    3. If proposed quotation within credit limit - no additional approvals required
  7. Convert accepted quotation to job order.

Inputs

Source

Details

Client

Enquiry / Request for quotations

Client

Correspondence as necessary to enable  quotation

Client

Artwork assets to support quotation

Client

Acceptance of Quotation

Client

Confirmation of Pre-Payment if credit validation failed

Accounts Department

Credit approval (if required)

Accounts / Bank

Confirmation of Pre-Payment received in Bank

Supplier(s)

Availability Information for Stock required for proposed quotation

 

 

Outputs

Destination

Details

Client

Communication of one or more quotations in response to enquiry

Production

Accepted Quotation  > Job Order

 

 

Current Processing Flow

Receipt and Storage of Enquiry

  1. Client enquiry is received for one or more quotations. If received via telephone, Sales department request that enquiry is emailed

  2. Emailed enquiry is recorded / enquiry record created

  3. Enquiry record created based on customer email:-

    1. Customer & Contact details : [Name, company, phone, email etc.]

    2. Enquiry Date & Status

    3. Enquiry Details : [Reference, category, description,

    4. Copies of customer email / correspondence

    5. Artwork assets received and stored

    6. Internal sales staff member allocated to / responsible for quotation


Sanity Check of Enquiry

  1. Client enquiry is sanity checked for operational feasibility and supplier stock availability (e.g. can it be done operationally; are requested garments available with suppliers)

  2. Customer contacted if sanity checks reveal feasibility amendments required

  3. If amendments required and suggestions agreed - all correspondence stored

  4. If suggestions not accepted - enquiry is closed

Creation of Quotations

  1. One or more quotations are prepared based on the client enquiry

  2. Quotations require minimum core data

    1. Customer Information

    2. Process Line requirements

    3. Garment requirements

    4. Fulfilment requirements

    5. Art requirements

    6. Pricing & VAT amounts

  3. All quotation elements require pricing  - ideally fully automatically sourced from internal sources

  4. Core quotation data per above is recorded per customer request(s)

  5. Quotation(s) are created and generated based on all or sets of the quotation elements - see below table for typical use cases and department current practices

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Scenario

Current process

Comments

1

Simple quotation for single order: all garments and corresponding quantity breakdowns specified

Create only quotation elements necessary for order. Create quotation using all elements

 

2

Enquiry requests quotation for new order but for multiple quantities of the same garment set

Create quotation elements per each quantity dimension.

Create separate quotation for each quantity set

 

3

Enquiry requests quotation for new order. Total garment numbers are supplied but not the breakdowns (size / style etc)

Create only quotation elements necessary for order. as per scenario 1, except garment elements

 

For garment details, separate garment elements by the underlying pricing and use generic garment SKU per price level

 

example: Customer requests 100 Garments (90 will be spread between  S to XL (but not qty specified) and 10 XXL)

 

Prices are identical for sizes S to XL of £1, but £1.50 for the XXL

 

Two garment quotation elements are recorded and used for the quotation - with price being the dimensions differentiator

 

90 @ £1

10 @ £2

 

4

Enquiry for quotation for repeat (poss with changes) of a previous order

Sales staff locate the prior order to determine the salient elements (and reference number)

 

Quotation elements created based on prior job order / client request and ensure current pricing data.

If quotation is accepted - sales staff duplicate the prior job order rather than convert the quotation to an order

 

This is the most inefficient of the enquiry scenarios as involves manual keying of details that predominantly exist in a job order.

 

Ability to create an amendable quotation from an existing order would be desirable. Any job order created from this would be created as a subsequent stroke reference to the existing order.

 

  1. Quotation(s) as required are produced and emailed to the requesting client
  2. Sales staff record the sent date ; and status of sent.

 

Client chasing  for Quotation Approval

  1. Customers are contacted on T+2 of quotation sent date to establish their response

  2. If on T+2, no response / customer considering response, sales staff record date to recontact client in current date+ 2 days. This is repeated for 3 cycles (T+6) and if still no positive response, enquiry is closed.

Client communication  for Quotations

  1. Subsequent to quotation sending, various communication can occur with the client regarding quote details. This may involve amendments to quotation  elements / supply of additional information etc.

  2. All correspondence is stored on the original enquiry record

  3. Where necessary, quotations can be regenerated based on revised information

Client Approval  for Quotations

  1. If client informs they do not wish to proceed, the enquiry is updated to reflect this and closed

  2. If the client informs that they accept the quotation, a credit validation is performed before the quote is advance to a live order :-

    1. If client has no credit terms - they are instructed to make full pre-payment before the order can be placed
    2. If client has credit terms but in breach or requested order(s) will breach this, sales department contact Accounts department for approval
    3. Accounts may approve the prospective order, or may request that order can only proceed with pre-payment
    4. Sales staff record these details on the enquiry
  3. Where credit validation triggered pre-payment requirement - the quotation remains on hold until payment is confirmed by the client, and ratified by Accounts department / sales department confirming cleared funds received into TOT banking a/c

 

Conversion to Job Order

 

  1. Upon credit check completion, Sales staff convert the quotation to a job order [ which forms an input to  the production management workflow]
  2. Exception to the above is for re-prints of existing orders  where sales staff duplicate the existing job order with a subsequent stroke reference and populate order elements as required

 

Workflow Schematic

See here for schematic

 

Future Requirements

Future state is have full CMS capabilities

  1. Data and Analytics : metrics about each customer, like how often they engage with your communication.

  2. Activity Tracking:  how often your clients are requesting support, purchasing products, or returning defective items so you can better anticipate roadblocks and even prevent them before they occur.

  3. Communication: Email, call, text, or send a social media direct message to customers using templates and automatic sending functionality.

  4. Workflows: Never let a follow up fall through the cracks. Use automated workflows in a CRM to send outreach and schedule meetings.