Order Fulfilment: Definition & Key Steps
What Is Order Fulfilment?
Order fulfilment can mean a lot to a wide range of people and often the term is over complicated or misused entirely.
Order fulfilment, put simply, is the process that follows a customer’s order of a product, ensuring that they receive their product and their order is fulfilled.
From dispatch to delivery to doorstep, as a business, you have a responsibility that the product, be it something small like a letter or much larger such as a refrigerator, is properly delivered, preferably in a timely manner.
This process involves the postal services and storage resources and can be costly and time-consuming, but ensuring order fulfilment is key for a positive customer experience.
So what does it mean when an order is fulfilled? It means that the process is now complete and the customer has received their product.
Ideally, businesses should look to fulfil all of their orders as quickly as possible with a secure and reliable delivery - although this is not always the case.
For many businesses, order fulfilment can be a burden that takes time off of other, possibly more important tasks at hand.
From eCommerce businesses to independent stores, the fulfilment of orders can quickly become overwhelming and take the focus off of essential roles like manufacturing or marketing.
The process requires proper care as mismanaged deliveries or overstocked warehouses could leave customers without their order and can reflect poorly on a business’s reputation.
While it may be considered tedious, it is important to be able to carry out all of the key steps to ensure reliable and thorough order fulfilment.
Key Steps In The Order Fulfilment Process
From beginning to end it is important to be aware and knowledgeable about all of the key steps in the order fulfilment process in order to ensure quick and efficient deliveries to customers.
The Order
The order fulfilment process always begins with the order, so to start off on the right foot it is important to ensure that your stock is managed and accounted for in order to avoid any orders on out-of-stock items.
Once you know what your customers are looking for you should either retrieve the product from the stockroom or warehouse depending on the size of your business.
Stock
You need to make sure that both stockrooms and warehouses are large enough to contain the stock that needs to be fulfilled, overstocking can cause issues with fulfilment as you cannot deliver what you cannot access.
Once you have organised your customer’s order you need to mail it to them, there are a variety of delivery services available.
Delivery
Small businesses can deliver locally themselves ensuring that an order is fulfilled first-hand, bigger businesses have an array of options available to them from the Royal Mail to DPD, Hermes and so much more.
It is key to ensure that you have the right delivery address, once you’re sure it’s time to send off the product.
The faster the delivery the better as customers tend to come back to businesses that offer quick and hassle-free order fulfilment.
Order Fulfilled!
While there is nothing left that you have to do once you have fulfilled your order, you can add a personal touch with a letter or a postcard thanking your customer for their service - it goes a long way.
Managing Your Order Fulfilment
Are you spending so much time meeting your fulfilment needs that you aren’t able to focus on the development of your company?
Order fulfilment can be a tedious task when there are more pressing matters that need to be completed.
It often slows down a business’s productivity and more frustratingly can tie up a business’s resources.
From choosing the right mail supplier to finding suitable storage space, it can be as costly as it is time-consuming.
The cost of mail supply can differ greatly depending on where you are delivering to, often keeping on top of what option offers the best deals can become too time-consuming to regularly undertake.
Is this having an effect on you and your business? And if so, how do you intend to rectify the issue?
There are services available that offer the handling of order fulfilment so that you can focus on the development of your business, we believe that the services provided here at CX Services are second to none.
How We Can Help
If you are struggling with the fulfilment of your goods and storage is becoming an issue, we can help you free up time so that you can work on your business rather than in it.
CX Services can help you with all of these issues and more.
Our wide range of fulfilment services offer the following to businesses of all sizes and with varying order fulfilment requirements:
- Easy order import from most online eCommerce providers such as Shopify and Amazon.
- Fully managed stock system
- Easy order management
- Access to courier services along with order tracking
- Warehouse storage space
- Full reporting suite
We will free up your resources and ensure that all of your orders are accounted for, accurately fulfilled and delivered in a timely manner.
We strive to ensure that your customers are satisfied with quick and secure delivery, fulfilling their orders and making sure that they will come back and use your services again.
We will make sure that your orders receive the best delivery through Royal Mail, Whistl and DPD, providing you with efficient and cost-effective delivery.
With our warehouse space we’re happy to assist in your order fulfilment, whether you need to dispatch hundreds, maybe thousands of items a day, or whether you only need a handful but are busy with other areas of your business.
Our experienced team has worked in order fulfilment for a significant period of time and will be able to handle your orders with professionalism and care, ensuring that they arrive at the right place at the right time.
You can focus on your business while we focus on improving your businesses reputation for fulfilled orders.
We specialise in making your life easier, taking care of time and resource-consuming tasks like mailing and contact centre services.
If you’d like to get the ball rolling with order fulfilment assistance, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with a member of our helpful and knowledgeable team.