Case Study
Automate Order Matching and Shipment Notification
Challenge
A Cleveland area supplements distributor was expanding rapidly. He found he was spending several hours per day matching order notifications to shipment notifications and then writing shipment confirmation emails to his customers. He received over 100 emails per day and was feeling overwhelmed. This was consuming the majority of his time, forcing him to work on menial tasks rather than focus on business development. He was searching for a way to make the process more efficient, when he was referred to Work Horse Integrations.
Breakthrough
Our experts worked with him to design an automated process that matched incoming order notification emails with shipment notification emails, that were at least 12 hours apart, from two different sources. The process extracts key information from the order and shipment emails, matches the data, and then sends an automated shipment confirmation email via a third-party email provider.
One of the keys to the process was handling errors. When dealing with emails, even automated emails, data may not be what you expect and where you expect it. Consequently, we added our standard logging and monitoring services in order to report on the status. Email notifications were also added to alert our staff and the customer to potential problems.
Results
Within three weeks of starting our conversations, the process was designed, implemented, and running. He was able to save several hours during the day by only dealing with a few errors rather than manually matching hundreds of emails. He is able to find new ways to promote and build his business knowing that this scalable and automated process is working. We monitor the process, continuously look for ways to improve handling errors if and when they arise.
