Customer Service with aroma®

Many retailers work with so-called dropshippers, i.e. partners who keep articles in their own warehouse and forward them to the orders for these articles. The forwarding of orders to business partners is comparatively simple. It is also important and more challenging to support the business partners in processing the order. To do this, the partners need an easy-to-use system that they can use from a standing start without any installation or preparation. Arvato Systems provides the Drop Ship module from aroma® for this purpose. Orders can of course also be transmitted to business partners simply via interface.

E-commerce and omni-channel processes always cause a lot of work when unplanned events occur, such as

• an article that a customer has ordered is not available
• an invoice from a customer is not paid at all or only partially paid
• an incorrect article was delivered and the customer now wants a replacement article
• a delivery takes longer than planned
• a customer makes a chargeback, etc.

Therefore one of the most important tasks of a Distributed Order Management System is to support these service processes. Arvato Systems has developed and optimised aroma® over many years on the basis of practical experience and thus helps to optimise service processes and implement them cost-effectively.

As a retailer, you offer your articles today on many different channels, such as your own online shop and in the shops. Historically, different systems for maintaining and managing prices and promotions were often used for the different channels - this made administration slow, costly and error-prone.

We have developed the aroma® Price & Promotions module for the simple, fast and central administration of prices and promotions across all channels.

In addition, the module functions as a "historical memory", where all historical prices and promotions are stored. On the basis of predefined rules, the correct refund amount is calculated for the customer in case of returns.

Your advantages as a dealer:

• Profit from a highly efficient price and promotion module
• Simplifying the management of prizes and promotions 
• Unification across all sales channels possible
• Optimisation of return payments, avoiding unnecessary high payouts
• Reduction of operational costs in the management of prices and promotions

In addition to the physical processes, financial processes are also managed in Distributed Order Management (DOM) with regard to customer orders. These processes sometimes differ considerably depending on the payment method, country concerned and tax rates. aroma® supports these processes internationally. For this purpose, all prices and tax statements are kept in the system for the articles and orders.

On this basis, the system generates the data records for the connected financial systems and, if required, also necessary documents such as invoices. Changes to VAT rates - e.g. 2020 in Germany within the scope of measures during the corona situation - are easily configurable in aroma®. Various payment options including ordering on account or mixed payment methods from credit cards and bonus points can also be mapped.

As the system keeps all relevant financial information available, it is also possible to calculate in the system what amount is to be paid out to a customer for returns. Less powerful systems always fall back on the shop system - this causes unnecessary data traffic and often problems in customer service. Only when the relevant financial information is available in Order Management, as is the case with aroma®, can customer service staff also provide comprehensive information on financial topics.

The control and optimization of the delivery, finance and service processes is based on extensive data collection, reporting and analysis. aroma® provides comprehensive reports on the status of the business. In addition, running processes are automatically monitored in the background, anomalies are detected and processes are escalated if necessary.

Examples of available reports:

• Sales reports: summary or per article group incl. drill down on articles / various analyses (e.g. slow seller, top seller, ...)
• Overview of incoming orders with analysis options according to various dimensions
• currently processed orders incl. analyses according to order status
• Customer reports and analyses (e.g. top customers, customers who return a lot, customers with numerous contacts in customer service ...)
• Cancellations and returns, report on allocated goodwill credits
• Report on stocks (e.g. total stock, reserved stock, expected stock, date of update of stocks, location of stocks, analysis of stocks by different types of stock such as "physical items versus licences")
• Financial reports according to various dimensions and levels of aggregation, for example by item, currency, region, time, net sales, gross sales, etc.

Reports can be filtered according to numerous criteria and contain aggregations / analyses for a quick overview. All reports can of course be exported in standard formats.

Business processes in omni-channel business are often long and complex. Our order management system aroma® simplifies the documentation, visualisation and modification of processes via an integrated business process management component. This gives our customers an excellent overview of the business processes and allows them to change them very easily at designated points.

1. Simpler processes can be configured directly in aroma®.
2. In addition, aroma works with a BPMN engine which can be used to create typical BPMN diagrams and modify processes at designated points directly in the BPMN tool (activity designer).

This offers you clear advantages:

• optimal overview of e-commerce and omni-channel process chains
• simple and quick changes to the process chains at designated points
• helpful documentation of the process chains
• easier onboarding of new employees and partners
• Efficiency increase and cost reduction in process management

With the powerful aroma® administration console you make yourself independent of service providers and increase your flexibility at reduced costs - your team takes over the typical admin tasks of e-commerce and omni-channel operations.

Your benefits:

• Reduction of operational costs for the management of operative processes
• Empowering your own team
• Reduction of dependence on IT service providers and reduction of corresponding costs
• high flexibility in the control of the omni-processes
• Very good overview of all processes and configurations
• clear reporting, monitoring and alerting
• better customer service at lower costs and increased team satisfaction