"How can we get these manual human steps out of there?”
That was the goal of Nick Liles, Sisk Fulfillment Service IT Manager, when he realized his team were spending too much time on manual, error-prone data processes.
Sisk Fulfillment Service handles around 4.5 million shipments a year, for dozens of clients. The company prides themselves on providing outstanding customer service, and core to that is a streamlined, automated data process to make sure the right information gets to the right team, fast.
Before: Errors and late nights from manual data processing
The process for dealing with incoming customer orders required manual intervention, including someone having to pick up and process incoming files late at night.
Nick remembers: “I’d often be up at 3am just to make sure I could process that file ready for production in the morning. Otherwise it didn’t get dealt with until the morning, which then caused delays in production.”
The team then had to spend 3 to 4 hours every day performing multiple time-consuming steps manually, including data mapping. All the steps were prone to human error. And errors had big potential consequences for shipments.
Nick realized that only way to remove that potential for error (and to stop people having to be up late at night) was to automate the process.
With CloverDX, Nick and the team were able to recreate their entire end-to-end process as an automated workflow in CloverDX. The workflow does everything from detecting when a client file has arrived through to mapping the file and checking for errors – all without needing manual intervention.
After: Eliminating manual effort (and no more late nights)
The automated CloverDX workflows can now kick off the order process as soon as customers upload their files – without any delays, and without anyone needing to work late.
As Nick explains: “We have a client who posts their files at 8pm, and before CloverDX we would get that at 6am the next day and have to upload it. Now the CloverDX workflow detects that file automatically, and the client gets an automated email at 8pm saying the files are uploaded and ready to go. The client couldn’t be happier that that stuff’s been fully automated.”
“Now the CloverDX workflow detects that file automatically, and the client gets an automated email at 8pm saying the files are uploaded and ready to go. The client couldn’t be happier that that stuff’s been fully automated.”
Sisk have also built automated error handling into the process, so the team no longer has to manually inspect files, but errors are automatically detected and corrected, meaning the process isn’t interrupted.
Scaling for multiple clients in a fraction of the setup time
One of the benefits for Sisk of building data workflows in CloverDX is how easy it was to adapt the process to handle the variety of different data formats they receive from different clients:
“We created this process for one client, from the incoming file to the output, and fully automated everything that’s in between. When we have the framework of what needs to happen, for other clients it’s just a matter of changing some parameters, or changing where it’s looking for files – the hard work had already been done.”
A collaborative approach to support
The team at Sisk is a small one, and when they were looking for a data automation solution, one of the requirements was to work with a company they could rely on for help and support. Nick recalls:
“I originally started looking for something open source. But with a lot of them the support was basically one guy with a forum where he answers questions. And that wasn’t really the support level I was looking for.”
The team wanted to make sure they could get help when they needed it, especially with more complex tasks, and he’s delighted with the support he’s had from CloverDX:
“Companies will always tell you they have great support, and then you buy the software and you find out that’s not the case – you put in a ticket and it takes 3 weeks to get an answer. With CloverDX I get answers right away. Any time there’s a problem they take every bit of care to try and get a resolution, even if it’s something I just screwed up, or didn’t understand.”
“Companies will always tell you they have great support, and then you buy the software and you find out that’s not the case... With CloverDX I get answers right away. Any time there’s a problem they take every bit of care to try and get a resolution”
As well as the CloverDX Support team, Sisk have worked with the CloverDX Professional Services team to help accelerate development, and have enjoyed CloverDX’s collaborative approach, as Nick explains:
“It would be very easy for them to just say ‘tell me what you need and we’ll give you some functional project out the other end’. And sometimes that is what you need, but most of the time they understand that we’re trying to learn. They go beyond just building and delivering something, and instead take the time to explain to us why they did what they did and how they set it up, so that we can maintain it if we need to make changes. So that way we can learn, and maybe next time we have the same issue, we can do it ourselves.”
Freeing up time from manual tasks
The automation that Sisk have been able to do with CloverDX has freed up significant time from manual tasks, as well as eliminating the potential for human error and bringing uniformity and scalability to their processes.
“By far the most valuable thing CloverDX has brought is that automation. Being able to pick up those orders and jobs and run them in the middle of the night and not have somebody that has to be there first thing in the morning to get it done is definitely the most valuable piece.”
Nick says: “By far the most valuable thing CloverDX has brought is that automation. Being able to pick up those orders and jobs and run them in the middle of the night and not have somebody that has to be there first thing in the morning to get it done is definitely the most valuable piece.”
He adds: “Because we’re now less reliant on someone having to be there to do those manual processes, we’re really able to shift the mentality from just ‘waiting for an email to come in so I can grab the file and start the process’ to really being able to focus on quality control and data integrity.”
About Sisk Fulfillment Service
Sisk Fulfillment Service has been providing superior fulfillment solutions to direct marketers for over 40 years. From Fortune 500 companies to small regional businesses, both for-profit and non-profit, their client list includes world-class brands and internationally known charitable organizations. They provide services in the areas of e-Commerce order fulfillment, membership program fulfillment, subscription premium fulfillment, custom kit assembly, personalized acknowledgements, and most any other handwork projects.
www.siskfulfillment.com
Case study: From late nights to hands-off automation for Sisk Fulfillment Service
