5 tools to increase internal communication in floral companies
by Marcela Buitrago, Komet Sales
Internal communication is the key to control the day to day operations of an organization. No company can succeed if its various departments don’t work in tandem towards the same objectives and start chasing different ones. Employees need to comprehend the business, its values, what is expected of them to achieve the organization’s goals and to engage with their own roles.
Komet has several ways to help teams stay connected in real time, keeping in mind that nowadays remote work is a reality we are facing and we need to ensure all parties are involved in business transactions.
Let’s talk about some options you have available in the system to maintain every department connected and well-informed helping you to engage your teams:
Tags
Tags are an excellent way to enhance communication between sales and procurement departments. With tags, sales can mark a Prebook line item to indicate procurement that a product is for a special event, for example, “Wedding”, or to facilitate them the search of a specific product – this is done from the Bulk Purchasing Mode.
Procurement can also use tags for corporate purchasing which indicates that a particular location needs a product to be sourced by the main location because it either couldn’t be sourced from another vendor or because that is normal purchasing procedure within the company. Tags can also be used to mark a Prebook that can be Filled From Open Market inventory and in few other ways.
Work On
This tool allows the procurement staff to mark the line items that each person is currently working on in the Bulk or Single PO tabs. This, as well, is a visual way to communicate with other procurement users to ensure that no two team members are ever working on the same item and perhaps even assign them work if they are working remotely.
Unable to Source
Procurement can communicate to the sales department that a product is unable to be sourced through this option in the system. This allows the salesperson to be able to make decisions about substituting an item or inform the customer accordingly. When procurement marks a line item as “Unable to Source”, an icon shows up directly on the Prebooks screens and the salesperson receives an email from procurement letting him know the reason why that item can’t be sourced.
Product Line Item Notes
With the general notes that can be added through the Prebooks tab, all sales members can relay information to the procurement team about a specific line item. This allows both teams to be on the know about the details for customers’ orders and keep adding notes as a communication thread as needed. You should keep in mind, however, that notes within Prebooks are visible both by the vendor and customers as they follow the order’s flow up to the invoice.
If you ever need to place comments for internal use only, there is also an option to add notes by customer through the customer card which can be accessed by clicking on a customer’s name anywhere in the system. Managers and admins can even make a note extra private by allowing only other admins and accounting roles view the note.
Record Lost Sales
This tool helps sales to analyze and search for improvement opportunities in the process and communicate upper management lost sales opportunities. Whenever an item is recorded as a lost opportunity, to be able to properly track this metric, management will have to use our Business Intelligence tool to create reports that periodically notify them of the items that have been flagged.
Streamlined and immediate communication through technological systems and platforms like Komet Sales facilitate internal processes, especially in the flower industry. Tools are needed to speak your industry’s language and allow you to excel through your work to help you serve your customers well, which after all, is the main goal.
Source: Komet Sales