Telemarketing Solution for the Food and Beverage Industry

Dynamics AX customization case study

Company

The group of companies with a broad competence in gastronomy including business, event, and public catering; meals at schools, hospitals; distribution to retail stores, cafes and restaurants.

Business situation

The Company offers services to a variety of customers, such as schools, kindergartens, hospitals, and other organizations and individuals. The Company has to provide a diverse product range in each category to stand out in the crowded marketplace. It has to keep the customers’ loyalty adjusting product offerings to their specific needs and tastes. It also has to expand the customer base.

The main marketing tool the Company uses is Telesales-both regular customers and prospects are contacted by phone to place orders, learn about new menus, discounts, etc. The Company was in the process of implementing Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 when it appeared that the out-of-the-box functionality doesn’t address their specific needs in telesales.

Challenges

The Dynamics AX functionality offers reporting and BI features based on actual sales. We had to customize the system to enable reporting and analyzes based on customers’ and prospects’ inquiries. While working on this project, we’ve faced a number of challenges:

• Each Dynamics AX food beverage item and each culinary solution must have a wide array of parameters: calories, supplementary products, health info, etc. The telesales specialists should be able to provide customers and prospects with detailed information on every product.
• Customers’ and prospects’ demands and refusals, sales statistics for each region and vertical category, and many other factors should be taken into consideration. This information is used to make sales forecasts and provide a cost-effective supply chain management, particularly in regards of the warehouse stock management.
• All relevant information has to be centralized and easily retrieved by both telesales specialists and business analysts.

Solutions

Axiopea’s team developed a Telesales add-on that visualizes detailed information on separate products, turnkey culinary solutions, previous orders, and requested/refused options. Main Telesales features:

1. All products, orders, customers and prospects are gathered in one place. The telesales specialist is now able to

• Provide customers with information on every goods item and culinary solution: calories, recipes, precautions, supplementary products and so on.
• Fasten ordering process by using the information on previous orders
• Offer additional options based on customers’ preferences, health conditions, etc.

2. Dynamics AX reporting and planning is now based not only on actual sales statistics, but also on sales forecasts. The responses of customers and prospects to the telesales representatives are indicated in the system to be analyzed later. This functionality made it possible to

• Add/exclude items to each vertical solution and product category
• Introduce diversity
• Optimize the warehouse stock
• Provide additional services

Results

With Axiopea’s service the Company was able to combine telesales and telemarketing features in Dynamics AX providing more value to sales, marketing, and logistics. The Company obtained a tool that helps manage AX sales based on both actual consumption and inquiries from customers and prospects. The solution helped the Company to

• Improve customer care
• Increase sales volume
• Enhance the warehouse stock management

The Company stands out in the competitive marketplace by offering individuality and variety instead of pre-defined meal plans to its customers.

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