During my Sophomore year of college, I was hired to be an accounts payable intern at Scana Corporation.  Being my first real job experience I was ecstatic to have the opportunity to experience the corporate work place.  I have had numerous roles in my accounts payable position which include processing invoices, reconciling the company credit card, connecting with companies to provide updates on payments, etc.  However, there has been one role in the accounts payable department that has stuck with me in a meaningful way the last two years.

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When I first began in the accounts payable department at Scana corporation I took on the daunting task of sorting over 100 pieces of mail today.  To most this may seem like a simple task, but it was much more than that.  I had to make sure that the invoices were placed in their correct location so that when the accounts payable team and I went to enter them there were no issues.  After being trained on how to properly accomplish this feat and doing it on my own a few times I knew there had to be a more efficient way to do it.

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The way the accounts payable team was originally sorted invoices took a very long time.  I came to realize that sorting mail was taking at least an hour and it wasn’t efficient.  One of the most important things when it comes to the accounts payable department is efficiency.  If the accounts payable department has something that is slowing it down, then it is the potential to impact the whole company.  With that being said, I took the initiative to revamp the mail process. To revamp the mail process, I knew I was going to need the approval of my supervisors.  Therefore, I decided to take a unique approach to convincing my supervisors which was The Consumer Decision Process.

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In Marketing 350 Dr. Rishika Ramkumar taught us about how consumers buy into a product.  Consumers do this by going through a five-step process known as The Consumer Decision Process.   Although the Consumer Decision Process is mostly for buying tangible products and the consumer, I figured why can’t it be used for intangible services and the supplier?  Therefore, I decided to take four steps of the process and turn it into a PowerPoint.

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The first step in The Consumer Decision Process is Need Recognition.  Dr. Ramkumar explained Need Recognition as the consumer having functional needs and psychological needs.  What a functional need is how the product accomplishes something the consumer needs done.  For example, a functional need for tooth paste is the need to fight cavities.  In my case with the mail process my functional need was instructions.  The functional need for instructions would be speeding up the mail process.  I displayed this to my supervisors by showing a detailed step by step list of how the process should be done.  In addition to the detailed list, I showed how significantly the time was cut down by doing my process compared to the original.  Although there is also a psychological need that comes into play with functional needs, it did not come into play with the convincing of my supervisors.

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 Dr. Ramkumar then went onto explain the next step in the process which is the Information Search.  In the Information Search the consumer does an external search and an internal search.  In my case I decided to cut out the consumer from having to do this and did the search myself.  I decided in my case that only internal research was going to be necessary.  Dr. Ramkumar explained internal research as exploring your past experiences with certain products.  In my case I decided to explore the different approaches to sorting the mail I have seen before.  Through my internal research I was able to see what was working best for each person who sorted the mail and incorporate it into one process.  I showed this to my supervisors by taking the average amount of time it took me to do the mail alone vs doing the mail with someone else.  After showing them this information, I was able to then present to them my findings through a proposed plan.  In this proposed plan I showed them everything that worked the best combined in one.  After presenting to my supervisors the internal research I conducted it was time for them to make the purchase.

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The most important step in the consumer decision process is the purchase.  Dr. Ramkumar explained the purchase as the consumer deciding to buy the goods.  In my case, my goal was to make sure that my supervisors bought my instructions.  To sell them on the instructions I included a conclusion slide in my PowerPoint that stated why I believed my process is the best.  Doing this in my opinion is what sold my supervisors on believing in my process.  I feel this way because gave a break down of what the facts are and what will happen if they don’t follow my process.  After having my supervisors incorporate my mail process into the accounts payable department’s daily routine, it was important to make sure that my supervisors were happy with the results.

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In addition to just buying the goods, Dr. Ramkumar explained that the consumer also had post purchase actions.  These actions include customer satisfaction, dissonance, customer loyalty, and undesirable consumer behavior.  My biggest concern with my supervisors was making sure they were satisfied and had loyalty to my instructions.  To make sure they were happy I would give them a weekly update on how the process was going.  On top of giving them a weekly update, my supervisors made numerous comments how impressed they were with the new process.  Although I don’t work as many hours as I did over the summer when this process was created, my supervisors make sure that the other employees are implementing it.

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Creating something to speed up the mail process was certainly not an easy task.  I had to make sure that it was feasible and that it was approved by my supervisors.  Being my first major task as an intern this was very important to me.  If it wasn’t for Dr. Ramkumar and The Consumer Decision Process, I would have never been able to create the instructions that would convince my supervisors of changing the mail process.  This came to show me that The Consumer Decision Process is not just used for consumers, however it can be used the other way around by the supplier.  Learning you can turn The Consumer Decision Process has given me insight on how companies cater to their audience.  Understanding this will be able to carry me further in my career by learning how my coworkers think and how our business partners think.  If you can see things from inside out, you will be able to solve any problem that arises.