Valley View Milling EAI Connect Project Feature
- Easy Automation
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
PHONE APP AND ONLINE FEED ORDERING PROJECT FEATURE
Customer Name: Valley View Milling
Location: Seneca, KS
Website: https://www.valleyviewmilling.com/
Key Details: Valley View Milling is located in Seneca, KS and is constantly growing to meet the needs of our customers. With feed customer base spanning 8 different states, Valley View Milling offers customized feed for all species and can accommodate organic certified, pellets or mash, bulk or bagged, and mineral or grain blends.
Solution Provided
Valley View Milling needed a solution that streamlined the ordering process with customers due to the large number and complexity of the orders they receive daily. Online Feed Ordering , powered through the EAI Connect phone app, met that challenge. Built with mobile devices in mind, the module allows users to access the phone app anywhere, for free, and automatically syncs order data with NexGen Office at the mill.
Key Project Features
Order parameters include customer, location, formula, quantity, and delivery date.
See real-time status on orders the user has access to.
Users can order for one or multiple locations.
Available in English or Spanish.
Valley View Milling Customer Q&A
Matt Haverkamp, Assistant General Manager at Valley View Milling
Q: Why were you interested in a feed ordering solution?
"We had many issues with consistency in the ordering process. Training people to take orders from customers when we have so many different formulas was very time-consuming and led to many mistakes. When I read about EAI Connect, we had just gone through a successful integration with a different program for automated order entry. Unlike the other program, anyone with a smartphone could get EAI Connect for free. This availability, our previous good experience with automated order entry, and it being low-risk allowed us to make one of our easiest decisions.”
Q: How was your experience with onboarding and training with EAI Connect?
"Training was easy. It came naturally to anyone who had any experience with the ordering process already. Customers were eager to learn as well. On the other hand, onboarding took some time. We have a large customer base and a larger formula index. We had to go through each customer and identify which formulas they use so that we could have each customer card correctly set up before that customer could use the app. It led to a very slow rollout.”
Q: Who uses EAI Connect at your business and what has their experience been?
“The only person who uses EAI Connect in our business is our salesman. Otherwise, it is all customer usage. Our salesman considers himself technologically illiterate and even he has no issues using the app, though I do know sometimes he has his kids use it for him. In my personal use of the app, in the first few days of the app, I did think the app was a bit clunky. However, I have been told by my order processing team that the app has been improved several times since then.”
Q: How often is your business using the app? How many orders are you receiving?
“The app is widely used. My order processing team reports over 20 orders come in each day from EAI Connect.”
Q: How has using the feed ordering impacted your business?
“The phone app has reduced time spent on orders massively. We went from having several meetings about how we were going to handle the orders and all the errors that come with manual entry to not having to discuss it anymore. Before we had EAI Connect, the order processing team had a much higher turnover rate than average. It’s only been a year, but our team hasn’t lost a single member since we added EAI Connect.”
Q: Would you recommend feed ordering through EAI Connect?
“For any non-integrated feed mill, absolutely. While it does take away from direct communication with the customers, EAI Connect saves us time and eliminates errors.”