An operations desk that answers, watches and routes on its own
Coordinating shipments, answering customer questions, checking delivery status and re-keying operational information across several systems was eating the day before anyone got to the exceptions that actually mattered.
The challenge
Everything worked, and everything was manual. Customers asked where their shipment was and a person went looking. A delivery slipped and nobody noticed until the customer called. Invoices, shipping documents, purchase orders and customs paperwork arrived as files that someone had to read and re-type. Operational email landed in a shared inbox and was sorted by whoever opened it first. The information existed. Finding it was the job.
- Customer question
- Service agent
- Shipment data
- Monitoring agent
- Exception agent
- Operations team
What we implemented
- Customer service agent
- Answers shipment questions, gives delivery updates and handles the common requests, around the clock.
- Shipment monitoring agent
- Watches orders and flags anything delayed, stuck or heading that way, before the customer notices.
- Exception management agent
- Identifies delivery exceptions and recommends the action, with a human deciding.
- Document processing agent
- Reads invoices, shipping documents, purchase orders and customs paperwork, and extracts what the systems need.
- Operations assistant
- Lets staff ask about shipments, customers, drivers and performance in plain language instead of querying four systems.
- Email agent
- Reads incoming operational mail, categorises it, pulls out the relevant detail and routes it to the right team.
- Management reporting agent
- Produces the daily and weekly operational reports without anyone assembling them.
The result
Less manual coordination, faster answers to customers, fewer exceptions missed, and much less time spent searching through operational systems for something that was already there.
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