When you are in the business of selling services, you need to do it by having a clear view on what your customers want and need. Sales analytics is your friends here and it will help you along the road.
As your business performs, you need to keep yourself motivated and make changes along the way. This will help you maintain a high market value and keep increasing your profit.
One of the most crucial things will be to always keep an eye on your sales analytics. These metrics give you a clear picture on how you are doing, what you need to improve, what you need to get rid of and what you need to keep as it is.
One metric that you need to keep an eye on is the Sales Orders which should be filled per unit time. What is this sales order metric? Read on in order to find out about it and how you can apply it to your business in order to be even more successful:
What is the Sales Order Filled Per Unit Time Metric?
Knowing your inventory fill rate is one of the most important things to consider when you decide how to fill your sales order. This gives you a general idea of when an item is on stock or not.
This will help you in making a decision as to whether or not you should substitute that product – or wait for it to become available again. Customers, in general, will wait for a product if the shipping does not take too many days – but they might switch to similar products if the wait is going to be too long. The unavailability of the product might seem inconvenient to them.
Another way this is helpful is that you can contact the customer and give him an alternative – one which does the same as the original product they have ordered. This could help you sell a product that has a slightly higher price than the former, which usually works because the customer may be in a rush.
Your fill rate needs to take into account the timing. If you have customers that you know will come for a big amount of a certain product around a period of the year – then that’s when you need to fill your shelves with that product. Also, you need to have some alternatives – mainly because some may want to try something different or you may run out of that certain product faster than expected. The formula of this metric is:
(Number of sales orders filled in time period A + #Orders in time B + #Orders in time C + #Orders in time N) / Total number of time units in the specific reporting period
This sales metrics is of high importance especially if your business is the kind that supplies other people with prime materials. You need to always keep your warehouse at least 95% full – and in high demanding periods of the year at least 98% full. Having them full will mean that your sales orders won’t drop, and you can maintain your customers happy – and you do that by showing professionalism and that you care about them. Sales orders filled per unit time is a metrics that will change your business in a good way.