# Presentation: 168574

## 		ED PUBS

- One-stop shopping at the U.S. Department of Education’s Education Publications Center
- (ED Pubs)
- Delivers exceptional customer service, quality assurance, and a performance-based operation.

## Award Winning Project

- May 26, 1998, the Department of ED and Aspen Systems Corporation established ED Pubs.
- Centralizing customer service, mailing list maintenance, storage and dissemination of information products for 18 ED principal offices, NIFL, and NAGB.

## Customer Service Initiatives

- Centralized Call Center Representatives answer 5 toll-free telephone numbers Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. for ordering products and referrals to appropriate ED offices.
- After-hours and fax-back ordering available.

- On-line Ordering System lists ED informational products.
- Web users may order up to 5 product titles or customers may link to full-text electronic copies saving printing and shipping costs.

## Customer Service Initiatives, cont.

- Bulk Publication Ordering System (BPOS) allows schools, colleges, and other organizations to order student financial aid materials.

- Customers are automatically notified via e-mail when their orders are placed, shipped, and received.
- Orders are shipped within 1-3 business days.

## Customer Service Initiatives, cont.

- Centralized Inventory Management System with tracking and barcode technology creates seamless shipping system.

- Processes over 450 expedited orders monthly to agency-wide usage for seminars and conferences.
- These orders are shipped same or next day.

## More Customer Service Initiatives - Surveys

- Measures customer satisfaction.
- Enclosed with 10/% of orders, selected at random and tracked for delivery.
- Feedback is used to improve customer service and satisfaction.

**97%**

**92%**

## More Customer Service

- ED Pubs Call & Order Transaction System maintains a database of more than 713,000 customer profiles from 17 different databases.
- Saves shipping time, analyzes customer base and product needs.

- Spanish speaking operators.
- TTY/TTD to order materials in Braille and audiotape formats.
- Provides outreach.
- Centralized mailing list database prevents duplicate mailings.

## Cost Control Initiatives

- Produces monthly computer-generated reports used for tracking publication distribution among POCs.
- Allows planning future publication needs.

- Conducts multi-level cost comparisons for mailing and shipping.
- A cost savings of $1,293,281.55 for mailing and shipping has been realized since May 1998 through February 2000.

## Inventory Management Initiatives

- Department-wide centralized inventory maintenance system.
- Reliable inventory distribution statistics for each POC, NIFL, and NAGB.
- Credit for recycling products.

- Monthly computer-generated reports reflecting accurate product inventory.
- Barcode technology to identify all products.
- Threshold Reports automatically generated.

## Exemplified Performance

- Received Vice President Gore’s Hammer Award for putting customers first.
- Reputation as model site for federal government.

- President’s Management Council rated ED Pubs 7 points above private sector companies such as Coca Cola and FedEx in customer satisfaction.

## 	Transporation and 		 	Distribution Award

- Aspen was awarded the Excellence in Logistics Award by the Transportation & Distribution magazine for work on ED Pubs.
- Recognized for outstanding logistics practices resulting in significant improvements in customer service, supplier relationships and cost reduction.