A Guide to Efficient eCommerce Workflow Management

In recent years, online shopping has become indispensable to the global retail experience. eCommerce infrastructure and logistics have had to adapt quickly to rapid increases in online transactions and the trend towards mobile-based purchasing as customers seek (and expect) speed, ease, and flexibility from their online retail experiences.

Today, there is a growing focus towards automated eCommerce workflow management to streamline operations, boost productivity, and make business processes more efficient.

In this guide, we’ll go over everything you need to know to streamline your eCommerce workflow and see a measurable impact. Read on to learn what a workflow management system is, how automation can help your business, and where you should implement eCommerce automation for the best results and to maximise consumer satisfaction.

What is eCommerce Workflow?

eCommerce workflow includes a series of processes that make up the navigational setup of an eCommerce platform. These lead users right from the website landing pages through to making purchases and payments. The flows that interconnect with one another, both initiating and completing processes on the website, are known as eCommerce workflows.

eCommerce workflows are essential for creating a quick and seamless user experience. The better they work, the better the conversion rates and lower bounce rates. When not designed well, they can also cause users to abandon carts and negatively affect your brand image.

Software to manage your workflow can help you assign responsibility within your organisation and optimise processes with automation.

What is a Workflow Management System?

A workflow management system streamlines repetitive processes and operations to achieve optimal output. It is the way that companies manage their day-to-day tasks and oversee results. The aim is to cut out unnecessary steps and eliminate waste while achieving business goals.

The main things involved in a workflow management process are overseeing eCommerce websites, product data feeds on online marketplaces, promoting the business online, providing customer support, managing pricing methods, and managing warehouse inventory, stock, and deliveries.

A workflow management system will help to supervise these commercial operations and improve business productivity while integrating with various digital business tools, such as CRM, a cloud-based collaboration platform, and a solution for the easy sign-off of electronic contracts.

Understanding eCommerce Workflow Automation

eCommerce workflow automation involves using software, technology, and other tools to automate repetitive processes and streamline various other tasks for your online store. Automation can be implemented for a range of services, from smart warehouse inventory management to marketing, order management, and even customer services.

It can also scale to suit your business size and needs – you don’t have to be a large-scale corporation to benefit from automation.

For example, the contact centre of a small eCommerce brand that chooses to use automated outbound call centre software can reap great benefits, such as freeing up employees to focus on more complex and technical tasks, which minimises the risk of human error at the same time as boosting productivity and overall customer satisfaction.

The benefits of eCommerce Workflow Automation

Let’s now examine the three main benefits of adopting an automation approach for your eCommerce workflow.

Increased efficiency

Frequent repetition in business tasks can cause serious congestion in your ecommerce system, slowing down the whole process or even causing it to break down completely. However, despite their time-consuming and mundane nature, repetitive tasks are often essential. Automation works here to open bottlenecks and speed up tedious processes.

Greater accuracy

Accuracy is essential to the running of ecommerce businesses. A multitude of tasks that are involved in the management of an online shop, like order management and product listing, require the collection and entry of accurate data.

Automation eliminates the inaccuracies that can occur through manual data entry and replaces human intervention in numerous company operations so that employees can be free to focus on more complex tasks.

Improved productivity

Automation enhances productivity by freeing employees for more complex tasks. Consider, for example, how using automated tools such as sales dialers can dramatically boost the performance, productivity, and profitability of salespeople thanks to its automated eC features. The same can happen to your ecommerce business.

But there’s even more. Automation can also improve transparency and accountability. With a workflow management system, employers can keep track of work more effectively and set more measurable company goals.

Areas for Workflow Automation implementation

There are a number of different areas where workflow automation can be used to streamline tasks and improve overall accuracy. Here are some of the most useful areas to consider when implementing ecommerce automation solutions.

Customer services

Implementing a workflow automation system helps to improve efficiency and customer satisfaction at each stage of the support lifecycle. The best software will automate responses for less technical queries, allowing your staff to pursue customer concerns that require greater attention. Overall, the time to resolve support tickets is reduced, and the customer experience is improved.

Workflow automation tools can also integrate with your eCommerce customer retention tools like loyalty programs and other purchasing incentives to collect customer data and create tailored content. With web analytics, automation tools can also gather data on customer behaviour and automatically segment customers by age, location, etc.

Inventory management

An ecommerce business can’t function without accurate inventory management. Customer satisfaction hinges on products being in stock and smooth fulfilment. It is also crucial that you don’t overstock items, waste warehouse space, and fail to respond to customer demands.

Automated inventory management, including services like stock replenishment, reduces human involvement in the process. Using real-time data, the software ensures optimal stock levels in line with consumer demands and allocates relevant stock to incoming order numbers. Shipping labels are also auto-generated, and stock volumes are updated accordingly.

Purchase orders

Just as with inventory automation, purchase orders can be digitised to reduce the manual steps involved in the ecommerce process. This means that purchase orders are automatically sent to vendors when your supplies run low, replacing the need for timely paper-based purchasing. It also significantly reduces the likelihood of errors like duplicate orders and missing invoices by repeating the order processes that have been set up and previously approved.

Marketing

When it comes to marketing, workflow management systems can offer some unique solutions to help build your brand identity. AI-powered platforms take a lot of the guesswork out of advertising by providing real-time insights into customer behaviour – showing how your target demographics are responding to your campaigns.

Working together, automated workflows and marketing help to make the customer journey more seamless. The software ensures your customers receive the correct marketing messages at the right times and can even segment your audience and send different correspondence accordingly.

You can also use workflow automation tools to schedule and plan social media posts, track your online engagement, and manage your content.

Order management

Order management automation leverages technology to ensure orders are sent out correctly and on time. From taking the customer order on your ecommerce site through processing and packing to shipping and delivery, order management systems will keep track of the process while ensuring accuracy.

The efficiency of your eCommerce workflow is greatly improved with an order management system, making sure that customer information is successfully transferred through each of the relevant areas before shipping. Automation software will also allow your customers to track orders through the stages of packaging and shipment, allowing for greater visibility throughout the process.

Sales

Sales enablement software and other sales workflow automation tools give your sales team more information and time with which to drive conversions and follow leads. Automatic prospecting helps to discover new customers, find up-to-date contact information, and transfer information to lead lists.

Call and appointment scheduling can also be automated alongside admin tasks, like task setting and updating prospect profiles. All this is also logged on virtual platforms so your team can keep track of progress. From here, they’ll also have access to customer analytics, generating actionable insights.

You can also automate outreach with personalised messages that can be distributed according to triggered actions. For example, you could set up a trigger for an email to be sent after a period of time when a customer has abandoned their cart.

Optimise your eCommerce workflow Management today

The most efficient eCommerce workflow management employs automation tools to streamline processes and ensure that tasks are performed with the greatest accuracy and efficiency. No matter the size or nature of your ecommerce business, automation helps you keep up with the ever-growing and changing online sales industry.

The more repetitive tasks you can offload to automation, the more likely you are to keep up with competitors by enhancing your productivity. You’ll reduce the mundane tasks managed manually and give your employees free time to concentrate on more technical and complex issues.

Not only does this improve the functioning of your business, but it also leads to improved customer satisfaction, with more resources spent on high-priority tasks that customers care about.