Aspin Interactive CRM systems win coveted eBusiness Award

Riverford Organic Vegetables Ltd who invested in Aspin Interactive's Franchise Management System has been awarded the DTI's ecommerce Awards 2004 for best eBusiness in the South West of England.

(PRWEB) September 23, 2004 -- Aspin Interactive CRM systems win coveted eBusiness Award

Riverford Organic Vegetables Ltd who invested in Aspin Interactive's Franchise Management System has been awarded the DTI's ecommerce Awards 2004 for best eBusiness in the South West of England.

The award ceremony which took place on the 19th September at the HP Labs in Bristol saw Riverford collect the award and a cheque for two thousand pounds.

Riverford's business system is an advanced web based CRM and Sales Order Processing system for managing customers, orders and deliveries.

The National awards for eCommerce will be announced in London on the 6th October. Riverford has been entered for both eBusiness and Best Rural Business. The overall winner will receive forty thousand pounds in prize money.

About the Award Winning System
Riverford Organic Vegetables Ltd operates their Riverford Home Delivery (RHD) service through a set of over 25 franchises operating across the south of England and is continuing to expand nationally.

Each franchisee covers one or more designated regions of the country. They are solely responsible in ensuring that the Riverford end customer receives the correct Riverford Home Delivery on the correct day. Customer orders are typically placed and maintained directly with their local franchisee, however order requirements can additionally be fed through to Riverfords Telesales team. Traditionally, franchisee orders come in to Riverford by fax and then had to be manually entered in to Riverfords Sage Line 100 accounting system. Nearly all new customers contacted Riverford and were then re-directed to the relevant franchisee.

The franchisee buys daily from Riverford the required produce to fulfil all of that days orders. The franchisee then sells each order directly on to the customer. A franchisees daily order is delivered over night to a cold storage 'hub ready for the franchisee to collect the following morning and to deliver that day.

Franchisees maintained their customer details and orders through a stand-alone Microsoft Access database installed upon their own PC. The Access application enabled the franchisee to build up a 'round sheet for each day displaying every order in sequence that they were to be delivered. Customer invoices were also created by the system.

Every franchisee managed their accounts through a simple accounting facility within the access database system. Franchisees had to regularly send financial information to Riverford by fax or sometimes email.

Franchisees were running several different versions of the Microsoft Access system and had various strategies for data back-up.

The Solution is a web based centralised franchisee account and customer administration system. This provide an interface for the administration of customer and order details for Franchisees and Riverford staff.

Access to the RHD online service needs to be through a standard web browser, available on all major platforms including MS Windows, Apple
MacOS and Linux.

Automatic updates to Sage accounting system provides Riverford staff with the ability to be able to update the product database on the live website from Sage Line 100

Collecting information for use in marketing and analysis enables Riverford to review information on the customers of the franchises such as orders, warnings, complaints and suggestions as well as contact details.

Creation and printing of round sheets via the RHD Extranet allows users to print round sheets with all relevant information as required to make a delivery, including warnings and order information.

Picking lists are generated from orders received from Franchises. The Riverford warehouse pickers are then given printed predictive and actual picking lists generated from the RHD extranet system. Giving the warehouse teams more information to prepare customer orders in advance.

Franchisees are able to manage more than one region. Franchisees are able to handle customers from multiple regions collectively through the same interface without having to log into separate systems.

The system allows both franchisees and administrative staff to easily generate reports on demand, giving them vital information on many aspects of the business.

The RHD extranet system generates printed round sheets with all relevant information for delivery drivers to make a delivery, including warnings and order information. The round sheets are generated in the order of drop sequence created by the franchisee.

The RHDx mail-merge system is a simple and easy to use facility to enter text, which is then added to a pre-designed letter template and produces a PDF to be printed out. This is extremely useful for customer group contact with regards product recalls or special deals.

Riverford have the ability to generate reports and analyse various types of data collected by the RHD extranet.

The website system allows franchisees to export and download relevant customer data onto their local computer for importing into Sage Instant Accounts.

Franchisee stock orders are sent to Riverford by the RHD Extranet system and imported into the accounting system, meanwhile warehouse dispatch is given picking lists to fulfil the orders and send to the relevant delivery hub.

The RHDx is a centrally stored application on a single system that is accessible by both the Franchisees and Riverford staff. The interface is an HTML based system that is accessed through a web browser.

This hosted service means that all Franchisees are be able to access the features that the previous MS Access RHD system offered, over an internet connection, without the need for the existing MS Access software to be installed on their computer. There is no longer an issue of version control and support on an individual machine basis. Data is now transmitted between the Franchisees online system and Riverfords accounting server.

For more information about Aspin Interactive's CRM e-commerce and sales order processing systems visit www.aspininteractive.com

For more information about Riverford Organic Vegetables please visit www.riverford.co.uk.
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