Turboboost your e-Business with an MIS
6 July 2020
Why shouldn’t a webshop be seen as a standalone activity? Because in an ideal situation the workflow of a webshop is completely in sync with that of a graphics company. If not, all efficiency benefits of a webshop are lost to useless double and therefore time-consuming activities. Not to mention that this costs money and can result in errors. And then things quickly go wrong!
Importance of connecting webshop & MIS
The relevance of this integration quickly becomes apparent when one considers the digital age in which we live. Customers have a lot of choice when looking for a product. There are also some important aspects to consider when shopping:
- Efficient customer care and flawless delivery times: to gain the trust of customers, make sure their questions and requests are answered in a timely manner. This can vary from customer queries to delivery / installation arrangements
- Know your customer, be relevant: when are you relevant? Well, for example, your customer probably won’t be looking for a car wrap deal if they don’t have a fleet. It’s therefore important to know your customer, so you can propose only relevant products
- A seamless experience for the customer: when a customer calls the help desk they expect you to already know who they are and any recent transactions they may have had with your company. This is only possible if all departments have access to the same data with the same application. And where can you find all the necessary information? In your MIS system!
Integration is the key
Many graphics companies fail to realise the full potential of their webshop. There may be a number of reasons for this, but an important reason is undoubtedly its integration into the existing MIS system, or lack thereof.
However, the advantages are numerous, both on the customer side and on the business side.
- Optimising the workflow: the purpose of a webshop is first and foremost to reduce the number of actions. Print orders are placed, confirmed and paid for by the customer themselves. The quotations are generated online and the print orders automatically enter the production workflow. The production specifications (machines, substrates, print quantity, finishing, etc.) are fed directly to the workflow, and translated into the different production steps: preparing files for printing, forwarding to workflows, automatic scheduling
- Customer information: all customer information, including delivery addresses, should be fully in sync with your MIS. This way your employees are always 100% up-to-date if there are comments or questions from the customer
- Follow up orders: if the complete order history, including price information, can be found in the MIS system, efficient support can be provided when it comes to adjusting or removing an order or additional questions from the customer. Thanks to the information that the MIS system returns from the production environment to the e-business environment, the customer can monitor the order status themselves
- Shipping and delivery: the online orders, like all other orders, follow the full flow of planning, production and logistics. It is therefore best to use the MIS system for this, so that you can fulfil your online delivery promises, and the customer can also track the delivery status using tracking codes
- Invoices and credit notes: invoice and credit note data is always accurate if it’s bi-directionally synchronised. For example, it is best that every cancellation in your MIS is also reflected in the webshop application. And vice versa, of course
- Shopping cart: by using the browsing history of customers and Google Analytics it is possible to see which products they are looking at. If products are added to the shopping cart, it is best to immediately forward this information to the MIS application
- Optimising your business: by linking the prices in the webshop to the calculation system, prices are always up-to-date in real time
- Efficient support: to deliver 100% accurate support, it’s very useful that you don’t have to switch between the webshop and your MIS system. If everyone can work from one application, this will only contribute to customer satisfaction
- Loyal customers: by fully integrating the webshop and MIS, discounts or other benefits can be set up for the customer. This way you build an ever-growing and loyal customer base
- Instant promotions: instant promotions can be triggered at specific times based on order history or total past order value. The rules for this can easily be set within the MIS application
- Personalised campaigns: based on the customer’s browsing history, you can tailor the campaign to the right audience. For example, if there is a discount on a particular product, the campaign may target all customers who browse relevant or related products or who have already ordered in the past
In summary
A webshop with a well-defined and integrated customer-oriented process helps graphics companies to do business better and to build a loyal customer base. The integration of the webshop into the MIS ensures that the organisation is well prepared to understand what is going on in the customer’s mind and to deliver the right product at the right time.
Remember! It is also the gateway for automatically accepting production files and processing them in the prepress environment. This also includes any online editing of files. Control, optimisation and fast automated processing ensure error-free and above all, faster infiltration of orders to production!
MultiPress MIS Software: the key to efficient e-business for graphics companies.
Dataline, as the market leader in the graphics industry with MultiPress, is not only the ideal partner for workflow automation, but also offers a whole range of possibilities to support or set up e-business yourself. This way you can be sure that the many advantages of e-business are actually translated into measurable efficiency improvements. Many offset, digital and large format companies today use MultiPress to access various e-business options: from simple B2B portals to advanced and innovative e-calculator solutions.
Want to know more? Contact Dataline about the versatile e-business possibilities in MultiPress.