“Our container is overflowing. Production lines are running at full capacity. We need service ASAP to avoid downtime.”
If you’re a waste broker, you probably deal with situations like this every week. Customers count on you to solve their time-sensitive waste disposal challenges—in addition to helping them save money and increase recycling. Ensuring excellent service is relatively easy when you’re managing a few clients. But, as you scale your business, you’ll need to tool up to deliver equal (or better) customer service.
In this article, we’ll explore how an automated waste broker dispatch system can unlock efficiency and drive increased levels of customer satisfaction.
Why Order Dispatch is Complicated for Waste Brokers
Waste brokerages tend to be “high-touch” businesses, requiring frequent phone conversations and in-person meetings with customers. This personalized approach helps waste brokers solidify their value in the market but can create challenges in the long run. Here’s are a few reasons why:
Phone Call Overload: A single waste broker could receive dozens of service requests per day, many of which occur over the phone. Each order requires at least two more phone calls—one to the vendor and another to confirm service with the customer. Very quickly, 20 orders can turn into 60 phone calls. That’s a lot of time on the phone and a lot of room for error.
Gaps in the Paper Trail: Requesting service over the phone might be convenient for the customer, but it also requires copious note-taking by the waste broker. Even with the best record-keeping processes, phone orders are prone to oversights that cause friction with customers and vendors.
Go, Go, Go: On-site customer visits provide an excellent opportunity to identify new business opportunities. However, the flow of orders doesn’t stop just because the waste broker is on the road. Being away from the office makes it even harder to coordinate communication and ensure order accuracy.
Continual Change: Customers expand to different states, build larger facilities, hire new people, and adjust their recycling goals. Recycling rebates depend on fluctuating market prices. And, vendors frequently change their service pricing to outpace inflation and operating costs. That’s a lot of moving parts for waste brokers to manage.
Automating Order Dispatch to Ensure Excellent Customer Service
Using an automated waste broker dispatch system can solve many of a waste broker’s order-related challenges. Here’s how RecycleERP can help.
Flexible Web-based Ordering for Customers & Brokers
With RecycleERP, waste brokers can offer a mobile app and web portal for customers to place their orders. This cuts down on phone calls and makes life even easier for all parties. Waste brokers can also use RecycleERP to enter orders on the customer’s behalf, such as when a customer calls to request service.
Logic for Specific Customers, Materials, and Geographic Regions
RecycleERP keeps track of preferred vendors for each customer / material / location combination, reducing the amount of mental gymnastics to coordinate orders.
Vendor Order Acceptance Workflow
Entering an order into RecycleERP kicks off an automated order acceptance workflow, prompting the associated vendor to accept the service request via email. Order acceptance is as easy as clicking the correct link in an email. Waste brokers no longer need to call their vendors to coordinate service—RecycleERP does it for you, while enabling better visibility into each order.
Email Automation
Customers automatically receive order confirmation emails within minutes of acceptance by vendors. Customers also receive service change emails when vendors are unable to provide service as expected. All of this happens without having to directly interact with vendors, which ultimately results in a faster, better experience for customers.
Built-in Paper Trail
RecycleERP logs when each order is received, scheduled, and picked up. The system also timestamps emails that are sent to vendors and customers, creating an auditable paper trail with far less manual data entry.
Time to Automate Your Dispatch Workflow?
Request a demo of RecycleERP to find out if our system is right for your business.
We also offer dispatch solutions for waste vendors that operate their own trucks and yards. Learn more about our dispatch module for automated dispatch scheduling, truck assignment, and monitoring.
