Data to capture from your OMS, and what it can tell you about your business

Your order management system isn’t just a place to check order inflow, product availability and allocation, and order fulfillment. A powerful OMS solution can also be a rich source of customer data, ripe for analysis, which can provide stakeholders with key insights about their business and the experience they offer.

Technology like FlexOMS gathers a wealth of details in order to facilitate brand interactions and order fulfillment. Elements like a customer database, shipping and sales tax, transaction authorization, inventory reduction, order shipment and more are all tracked and recorded through the robust platform. And when this data is mined and analyzed, it can offer opportunities to improve and advance.

Let’s take a look at the most important types of data you should be analyzing from your OMS, and the types of insights it can open up.

Identity data: Customer database management

An OMS that includes customer database management capabilities can help support the collecting and analysis of identity data, or basic details that enable brands to identify their customers. As GetApp pointed out, even this basic information – including customer names, email and physical addresses, age, job title, etc. – can show brands the types of individuals that make up their customer base.

This information can also be leveraged to create more accurate buyer personas, which are incredibly beneficial for identifying and catering to the brand’s target audience.

Inventory data can improve warehouse operations and ensure that in-demand inventory is always available.

Product data: Availability, allocation and inventory reduction

Another area to investigate is your product-related data, including current availability, necessary changes to product allocation, and inventory reduction numbers. A company’s OMS can provide the most complete and up-to-date look at which products are most popular with customers, based on availability, allocation and reduction.

In addition, this information can be used to improve warehouse operations and ensure that in-demand inventory is always available. For instance, if stakeholders see through the OMS that one specific product is usually low in availability and consistently being allocated, they may decide to increase the quantities they maintain to prevent the item from being out of stock.

Customer support data: Areas in need of adjustment

An OMS solution that tracks customer support inquiries is highly valuable. Managers can check that customer service representatives are efficient in their responses to customers, and that shoppers’ issues are escalated and resolved appropriately.

Customer support data is also a rich source of analysis when it comes to gauging the overall customer experience.

Returns data: Potential product improvements

Building on this last point, stakeholders should also look to analyze their returns processing data from their OMS. A high number of returns related to one specific product could point to quality issues, and necessitate the need for further development.

Ready for more?: Outbound customer engagement

An industry-leading solution like FlexOMS will also offer users the ability to improve their outbound engagements through surveys, customer feedback and analysis of social media interactions. These are all robust sources of data that can be further analyzed for insights relating to the customer experience, brand reputation and more.

For more details about how to make the best use of the data within your customer ordering process and OMS platform, connect with us at SFG today.