we will look at one of our clients whom use to rely on doing everything manually. This meant there would be large amounts of paperwork and bigger chances for said paperwork to get lost. The massive amount of paper used in the industry sector today is not very healthy for the environment either.
So, to get started, I will need to explain the process that the Customer Concerns Form went through while being done manually as well as try and give you an understanding of the amount of time it took for one form to be approved (Pre-SharePoint).ere ...
Pre-SharePoint: Customer Concerns & upliftment Form processes
First off, a customer would phone through to log a concern with one or more of their products. The person dealing with the concern would then need to find the concerns form and then write everything down including the customers contact details, the product they were having an issue with and exactly what the problem was. Finding the form was one issue that would take up a fair amount of time, then it was the fact that the form now had to be handed over to the relevant department for either testing purposes or straight approval. This meant the person taking the call would need to walk to the relevant department, and having to do this a few times a day can grow quite tiring, especially when it comes to the sheer size of some companies. Once the form had been sent to the lab for testing, it would then need to be sent to the relevant person for approval. This is where the form would be scanned and emailed to the relevant approver. Here lies one of the biggest issues with regards to the time taken to get these forms approved and completed. The approver was on the road and could not approve until he/she was back at the office, which could take hours and sometimes days. Once the approver had approved, another form would then need to be filled out. This form is the Upliftment form. The same details such as customer contact details, product details etc. would need to be recaptured and the form would then need to be approved by the warehouse. You can imagine the logistical nightmare this could cause as some customer concern forms were still awaiting approvals, coming through in drips and drabs, meaning trucks would end up visiting the same area 3 or more times in one week, whereas if everything was streamlined this could have all been avoided. All in all, the average time from the moment the customer called through to the time the stock was uplifted would take a couple of days, if not longer.our text here ...
Post-SharePoint: Customer Concerns & upliftment Form processes
Since we were aware of the processes involved in the Customer Concerns & Upliftment cycle, we decided to go with InfoPath to allow for a more customizable experience. Therefore, because we knew there were two forms that needed to be filled out with information, a lot of that information was just the recapture of the customer details, product details etc. We knew that InfoPath would give us the ability to create one or more "views" in one form, in other words, we could combine both the Customer Concerns and the Upliftment form into one form all the while still going through the required approval processes.After a few discussions and meetings, we went ahead and created the combined form along with the approval processes. The following is how the current process now works.
As before, the customer phones in with their concern, the staff member dealing with the concern would log into SharePoint and click on the Customer Concerns Form, they would then fill out the required details and click submit. Based on whom their Regional Manager or Manager was, it would then automatically send an email notification to that manager. Whether they were on the road or not, they would be able to open the form from the email and approve/reject accordingly. If the product(s) in question needed to be sent to the lab for further assessments, all the manager would need to do is click a tick box called "Send to lab" and click submit. This would then email the respective laboratory manager letting them know there was a Customer Concerns form that required testing. Once the tests had been done they would open then form and write their finding in the comment section, mark it as tested and submit back to the manager for approval. This in turn sends the manager another email to the manager stating the lab has completed the testing. Once the manager approves it then creates an Upliftment Request Form, all the while notifying the staff member that captured the call, that the first part had been approved/rejected. Pulling all the Customer Contact Details, Product Information through to the "new" form. Once the Upliftment form had been created, the warehouse manager would then get a notification that it requires approval. Once the warehouse manager has approved then it notifies both the manager and the staff member that captured the call, that the form has now been completed and that the upliftment would take place shortly.
Not only did SharePoint and InfoPath manage to cut down the amount of paper used within the company by a massive amount (both saving the environment and the company money) but it cut the average time down from a couple of days to twenty-five minutes. Thus, increasing productivity and keeping their clients a lot happier, which in turn helped increase their overall turnover.
