1        Introduction

Laddawn CE/CR/Hybrid staff, especially new staff, are frustrated with the current Avante interface for quoting non-stock bought products.  Their challenges are:

• knowing which questions to ask and which answers are acceptable - the current intake process does not cue for sufficient detail, so there is extensive back-and-forth between customers, CE and the quoting team to establish all the details necessary in order to produce an accurate quotation;
• understanding unfamiliar product terminology;
• having a feel for whether this something we can or cannot quote within a set timeframe;
• knowing how long the quote is going to take (based on existence of pricing model), so that customer expectations may be managed - since customers have come to expect real-time quoting for the majority of custom items.

In addition, the current free-form fields make it difficult for the product sourcing team to sort, segregate, analyze and track product categories being quoted. 

Goals

• Gather more complete, accurate information at the initial quote intake step to reduce quoting cycles.
  • Provide an "other category" to leave open the possibility we can quote something that we don't yet have validations or vendors for
• Empower CE/CR reps and customers to feel confident about the quoting process and thereby encourage more quoting.
• Provide an indication of turnaround time on quotes (based on whether a pricing model exists).
• Provide some very basic validations and cues to enable Laddawn staff to recognize that an item cannot be quoted.
• Enable conversion rate analysis, better tracking, and additional reporting of quotations through more granular quoting Q&A.

Background and strategic fit

This will contribute to sales and service staff efficiency and ultimately increased sales.

Solution and scope

Phase I will consist of modifying the current Avante NS-outside buy configurator to prompt for a series of questions based on product category, and will include brief descriptions of terms where applicable, and display estimated quote turnaround time.

Phase II will consist of making the process more seamless by providing a web form for the quoting Q&A and ashad lookups. Where applicable, the form will include images of some of product features in addition to definitions.  Once a product category is chosen, users will be able to see the full set of questions, giving them an idea of what info they needenabling them to answer some questions out of order, New CE staff (who are still learning which products can be quoted in the widget and which cannot) will benefit by being able to start their quotations via widget first, and if they get no results they will be able to move on fairly seamlessly to the online form. Routing quotations to the pricing team will be automated.

2        Definitions

3        Assumptions

4        User Interaction and Design

Phase I

Build detailed questions into the current Avante configurator

NS Buy questionnaire spreadsheet

The DRAFT spreadsheet below contains the questions that we want the configurator to prompt for, as well as allowed answers, and indicators of estimated quotation turnaround times. This spreadsheet will be finalized by COB 3/18/16.

•  Spreadsheet 

Phase II

DRAFT IN PROCESS - Process outline and design questions

We agreed that the design, such as it is, is ready for hand-off (pending receipt of the NS-Buy questions); the questions in blue below can be answered by IT. IT will consult the design group as needed. -SP, 3/8/16

1. CE will have the option start out in the widget.  Once they realize that the option(s) they are looking for aren’t available (ie, special color, outside of width range, double polylining, Count outside of range, below minimum qty, etc), they will go to the purple CE Requests tab.  Or they can choose to go directly to the CE requests tab if they know from the start that this is an NS quote.

2. On the Requests tab, they will start a new NS-Made or NS-Buy request – these request types would automatically go ON HOLD and would be routed to either David Low (NS-Made) or David Wholey (NS-Buy).
   
   

   Menu showing addition of NS quoting choices	After NS-bought is chosen, "Route to" is automatically selected. Showing as gray and unchangeable. Would CE ever need to route these to someone else before it gets sent for pricing? (I will ask Meme.)

   
   
   

3. Once they select Made/Buy, they would be taken to the appropriate new NS page, where they would fill out the questionnaire – NS Made would have the same questions/options that they currently see in the NS-Made Configurator.  NS-Buy would be expanded to ask add’l questions.
   Questions:
   
   Do you envision this literally bringing you to a separate page?  If we are going to a separate page... Are we starting with pretty much a blank slate i.e. no need for it to appear to be within any of the shop tab "containers" or anything of that sort? (I think we do need something on the page though that is a reminder of what contact you're logged in as). Also technically, what click triggers the move from selecting the type of quote to this new page? With no further changes to this pop-up, my guess you'd need to click "Save" in the pop-up, and 'X' out (???) That feels a little odd, but maybe there are some additional buttons etc. we could have appear (instead of a comments box) if you choose one of the ns quote types. TBD
   
   Or do you envision the questionnaires appearing within the pop-up once a quoting option has been chosen? TBD If that's the case we don't have to address the slight awkwardness described above, but we'd also need to reconfigure the layout of this popup somewhat; that will vary according to...
   
   What form is this questionnaire to be presented in? (Regardless of whether it appears on its own page or within the popup.) A list where you can see all the questions from beginning to end? Or progressive, linear question-by-question "wizard" approach, as is done in current configurator? 
   
   Prototype: http://10.15.5.40:8081/ns.aspx 
   
   
4. There would be a button on the questionnaire where they could import any previously entered data from the widget/results area, so if they got as far as results when they realized that they couldn’t enter the COUNT that the customer requested, the questionnaire would be populated with the data that they had entered thus far.
   
   
5. The Save/Continue button would create an NS quote in Avante.
   Not sure it matters, but just to be sure we have the same understanding – technically, the quote would not be created (and routed, etc.) in Avante until CE closes the browser and closes the request, correct? The save/continue button would however complete the request in the request box.
   
   
6. There would be an ashad search similar to the one in Avante where they could enter dimension(s) to see a list of the last ‘x’ quotes that were done.  Choosing one of these quotes would import the answers to all of the questions.
   Where would that ashad search live - in the CE requests popup? Or after you've chosen an ns quoting option and you're brought to a questionnaire page?
   
   

7. After the initial quote creation, everything would be handled back in Avante starting with the pricing of the quote, sending the old Optio quote acknowledgement, and converting the NS quote to an order.

Technical notes:

We need to add additional criteria to the NS-Buy configuration to hold the answers to the new questions and output a script that includes these new answers.  We also need to build up the NS-Buy description, which is currently free-form. 

Not Doing (in either Phase)

• We are not going beyond initial quote intake and routing to pricing teams; all steps after that will be handled as they are today, outside of the website.
• We are not addressing NS-made quotes; these will be handled separately, perhaps via fully integrating these into the widget (specifics TBD).

5        Testing

Test plan to be added when IT has finalized design.

6        Change management and rollout planning

Change management plan to be added when IT has finalized design.

<< Which departments are affected by these changes? What are the possible negative perceptions of these changes, and how do we manage them? Articulate "what's in it for me?" for all internal and external stakeholders. Are call scripts necessary? Is advance customer outreach/communication necessary? What lead time is needed for training and other advance preparations? >>