Risi Customer Story

CHALLENGES

Multiple channels & poor print quality hamper efficient order processing

Selling over 250 million bags of snacks per year, Risi is Spain’s second largest producer of snacks, crisps, biscuits and sweets. The company was founded over 50 years ago in Torrejón de Ardoz, and today has multiple production centers near Madrid and Seville. With nearly 13% growth recorded in 2019, Risi needed to improve its internal process efficiency to seize competitive advantages.

Every month, Risi’s Customer Service (CS) team receives 1,300 orders, coming in over a variety of channels that include email, fax and EDI. Often, the orders and delivery notes from distributors were hard to read, making it difficult to correctly capture data and thereby causing shipment errors and delays.

Seeking a solution that would improve the experience for both customers and employees, Risi decided to revamp its entire order management process. Automation had the potential to enhance the customer experience while enabling the CS team to focus resources on higher-value tasks.

"The biggest challenge was the poor print quality of some delivery notes. Working with Esker allowed us to improve several aspects of the process, one of which was how we receive communications from our main customers and partners."
Jorge Calvo Gutiérrez | Customer Service Director, Risi

SOLUTION

A unified platform simplifies order reception

Risi started tackling the overhaul of its order management processes in 2018. Beginning with replacing its former ERP with SAP Business One, the migration propelled Risi to examine all of its internal processes. This was an ideal first step to take in the process optimization project.

Esker’s Order Management solution allows for all orders and delivery notes to be received via Risi’s Impulse, Food and Convenience channels in a variety of formats — fax, email and EDI. Using AI capabilities, the solution captures order data automatically, resulting in fewer errors.

Easy solution adoption by Risi’s front-office CS team was a vital component of the successful implementation, further supported by a solid cooperation with Esker’s Customer Experience (CX) department. Implementation became difficult, however, once the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Esker assisted Risi in overcoming project constraints by carrying out the deployment, training and monitoring on an entirely remote basis.

"Esker’s solution implementation coincided with the introduction of pandemiccaused remote work. It was a major undertaking, requiring significant effort across multiple stages. Nonetheless, Esker’s CX team was vital for the successful adoption of the solution and helping us make the best use of it."
Javier Paniagua | Technology and Project Director, Risi

RESULTS

Improved visibility leads to faster order fulfillment and happier customers

Once Esker’s solution was up and running, Risi was able to observe immediate and positive impacts. Most notably, day-to-day operations were simplified, resulting in content employees and pleased customers: “Our CS staff are much happier now. They have more visibility into their work, they can add more value to operations and they perform with greater accuracy,” said Jorge Calvo Gutiérrez, Customer Service Director at Risi.

With the AI-based solution now automatically and correctly capturing the incoming data, order handling time has significantly decreased, from an average of 10 minutes per order to just under 2 minutes. Gutiérrez went on to explain that it is also very convenient for the team to have orders in all formats, including EDI, visible in a single dashboard, which provides them with an overview of all incoming data in real time.

Enabling in-depth analysis with dashboards not only optimizes the internal processes for the whole department, but provides companywide visibility as well. Pertinent data can be easily exported to the corporate business intelligence system, a center of communication for sharing strategic information with company management. Internal visibility, routing control and the possibility of reporting key trends with management are the most remarkable benefits that Risi highlights when reflecting on the impacts of the new processes.

Given the great results obtained for both customers and employees, Risi plans on extending automation to its billing processes as well.

"In just a short time, Esker has allowed us to automate all incoming orders and delivery notes, thereby enabling our CSRs to focus on tasks that add greater value. This constitutes a critical step in our process automation strategy."
Javier Paniagua | Technology and Project Director, Risi