Consumer Customer Service Appraisal

SITUATION

We conducted a customer service audit of the frozen vegetable division of a $4 billion food processing/distribution company. The audit consisted of calculating the following measures of customer service performance:

PROBLEM

  • On-time order entry, processing, consolidation, shipment, and customer receipt
  • Order, line item, and case count fill rate (in-stock performance) by:
  • Class of trade
  • Type of order
  • Size of order
  • Product line
  • Customer characteristics
  • Facility origin
  • Over, short, damages, and spoils
  • Customer complaint processing and effectiveness

SOLUTION

As a part of this customer service audit, a customer and competitive survey was conducted by mail, telephone and in?person. Customers were interviewed to determine the level of satisfaction; competitors were interviewed to determine their customer service performance levels, methods, organizations, and systems employed in serving their customers.

BENEFITS

The results of the survey were the reorganization of the sales traffic and transportation departments, the creation of a dedicated customer service function, the reallocation of product manufacturing to plants, and the redefinition of finished goods inventory stocking rules. The conceptual design of a customer relationship management (CRM) systems was also presented.

For more information, contact Peter Crosby at 310-463-3582 or [email protected].

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