Saving more than 300,000 pieces of paper a year is a handy result from an IT project.
That is what Paul Brassett, Virgin Mobile’s logistics support manager, achieved while implementing an initiative to automate the company’s customer documentation output.
The document management project is part of a larger company-wide initiative to update the Virgin Mobile web site, which had been largely unchanged since its launch in 1999.
A major marketing campaign in 2005 pushed the Virgin brand into the media spotlight through a series of high-profile celebrity endorsements and a defining new look.
But Brassett says the branding refresh was not the only change to Virgin’s online sales strategy.
‘We used web technologies to refresh the aesthetics of our web site but wanted to go further than just improving the look,’ he says.
‘To improve the invisible side of our customer service, we looked at output management systems to speed up services and improve the efficiency with which content-driven emails could be sent to our customers.’
Because of the variety of tariffs and phone models Virgin Mobile offers, implementing management technology was always going to be challenging.
Brassett and his team needed to introduce a system of customer document generation that would differentiate between its phone and service products.
And finding a system that could modulate output based on order content was not the only challenge facing Virgin Mobile.
‘Part of this requirement was to improve our capability to inform customers about the status of their orders and deliveries following a web site transaction,’ says Brassett.
‘Order confirmation emails went out through the web site, but we wanted to send emails to say their order had left the warehouse, when it would be delivered, inform them of the consignment number and provide them with the abi lity to track and trace it themselves.’
To fulfil all these requirements, Brassett needed to enhance Virgin’s enterprise resource planning system to create more efficient print management. Virgin chose Formscape, which integrated with its existing system and fulfilled all the project requirements.
‘Formscape enabled us to drive content-based documentation,’ says Brassett. ‘Documentation is different if you order a pay-as-you-go phone than if you order a contract phone, and the system also allows us to include a combined delivery note and invoice’.
As well as streamlining content and improving efficiency, Virgin has cut the amount of paper used by combining documents. Brassett says that although the environmental implications were not a primary driver, Virgin is continually reviewing the amount of paper and packaging it uses.
‘We’ve eliminated the printing of certain pieces of paper by merging them together,’ he says. ‘Our standard process is to send out a dispatch note and an invoice. What Formscape has enabled us to do is combine those two, saving us one piece of paper per transaction. We’re probably saving 300,000 or 400,000 pieces of paper a year.’
Brassett says the organisation prints thousands of pieces of paper a day – and a simple redesign, such as taking down the font by a point size, can make a difference to the volume printed. Formscape can help identify and implement opportunities for such savings, giving users the option to receive documents in an electronic form to save paper.
Cost savings also follow. ‘As well as saving money by not printing as many pieces of paper, we are now able to advise our customers of their delivery status – with the email saying when it will be delivered and how they can track their delivery,’ says Brassett. ‘We envisage that this will cut down on the number of inbound calls enquiring about deliveries and provide another cost saving.’
Consumers, meanwhile, are not the only people to benefit from an improved service. Brassett says retail stores are also profiting from the document management technology.
‘For example, Tesco likes to have its invoices sent out in a different format from Argos and can now choose to have it emailed or sent by post,’ he says.
The overall cost of implementing Formscape was in the region of £30,000, but Brassett has already witnessed payback in the few months since the technology was introduced.
‘Cost benefits, in terms of printing less paper, have already started,’ he says.
The logistics support manager acknowledges such savings are minor, when compared with Virgin Mobile’s entire outgoings. However, every little bit helps.
‘We expect to see the benefits of the improved notification of delivery to customer to kick in almost immediately, post launch – we receive a number of calls a day from customers enquiring about their deliveries and we expect no less than a 50 per cent reduction in the delivery related in-bound calls,’ he says.
‘It is a very cost-effective product and we expect a return on our investment in less than 12 months. We didn’t need any new equipment because it runs on a normal Windows server.’
Brassett plans to explore other features of the product.
‘We need more consultative services to understand more about what it can do to drive further change,’ he says.
But he imagines any business that involves the output of large volumes of printed documentation could benefit from implementing a similar system.
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