CUSTOMER FOCUS IN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

UNIT-3: CUSTOMER FOCUS IN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT Mr.Chethan.S
MK 6.6 SUPPLY CHAIN AND LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT Page 1
SUPPLY CHAIN AND LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT
UNIT-3
CUSTOMER FOCUS IN SUPPLY CHAIN
MANAGEMENT
WHAT IS CUSTOMER SERVICE?
Customer service is the support you offer your customers — both before and after they buy
and use your products or services — that helps them have an easy and enjoyable
experience with you. Offering amazing customer service is important if you want to retain
customers and grow your business.
THE 5 PILLARS OF A GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE TEAM

1. Channel variety
Different customers have different preferences for reaching your company. Clients will contact
you in the manner that's most convenient for them. It's important that you give them a variety of
choices.
Here are a few of the most common channels for clients to get in touch with you.
 Social media
 Live chat.
 Email.
 Phone calls.
 Self-service.
2. A proactive customer service team
Good customer service representatives (CSRs) listen closely to every client query for insight into
how they can help. For example, let’s say a prospective client calls your flower shop to see if
you can make a delivery on the next day. During the conversation, the customer mentions that
the recipient has several cats. At that point, a skilled CSR will suggest flowers that are
nontoxic to pets or let the customer know about non-floral items, like chocolates, that can be
sent instead.
Below are some key qualities you’ll find in a proactive customer service representative:
 Willing to go the extra mile.
 Empathetic.
 Patient.
 Responsive.
 Positive.

3. A focus on customer satisfaction
The core goal of customer service is to satisfy the client. High levels of customer satisfaction
usually mean repeat business. Your support team should always keep this in mind. Some key
strategies to consider include:
 Focus on creating loyal customers. In addition to meeting their needs, little things like
remembering customer names and small details about them can go a long way toward
making them feel welcome and appreciated. For example, if a client is an avid dog lover,
you might greet her by saying something like, “Mrs. Peterson, it's wonderful to see you.
How is your poodle?” You can also try sending holiday or special occasion emails.
 Training to avoid poor customer service. Quality training programs can be great for
improving a business’s customer service. For example, training can teach team members
how to demonstrate emotional intelligence. This might include showing empathy to help
diffuse customer complaints. Training can also help customer service agents understand
their digital tone, whether over the phone, through email, or over social media. Team
members need to know how to get customers what they need and how to react in certain
situations.
 Extra attention for new customers. New clients need extra care. They may not be
familiar with the way everything works. They’ll remember and be grateful that you took
extra time to show them the ropes.
4. Usage of an internal and external knowledge base
Knowledge bases are collections of useful information about a business. External knowledge
bases are for customers or potential customers, while internal knowledge bases exist for the
benefit of your team. Both help to improve customer service.
Some knowledge bases you’ll want your customer service team to have readily available include:
 Customer FAQ. Customer FAQ are lists of answers to frequent consumer questions,
customer issues, and concerns that clients have about a service. The internal customer
FAQ may provide service, technical, or process knowledge the customer service agent
can use to answer inquiries or address concerns, while an external list may provide basic
information directly to customers.
 On boarding or training FAQ. Training FAQ are created directly for your customer
service team to help speed up the on boarding process.
 Customer service tips. This internal base of knowledge consists of company guides,
documents, mission statements, and anything else that gives workers information they
can use to respond to client requests.
 External pages with information for customers. These can be anything that your
customer service team can direct clients to in regards to their questions. Examples include
web pages, blogs, video content, and product guides.

5. Customer relationship management (CRM) tools
A good customer relationship management system can be instrumental in improving the
customer experience.
CRM software serves as a central repository of all client information and allows departments
across the organization to access and add to this information. A CRM tool can store and organize
information like a customer’s demographic information, past purchases, and contact with your
business. Each department can also use this information to create customer relation strategies
that are personalized for their consumers.
Features you’ll want in your CRM include:
 Contact management. Your CRM holds all the contact information for your business’s
current and prospective clients. This lets you reach out to your customers to answer their
questions, provide special offers, and gather feedback.
 Tracking interactions. Your CRM keeps track of every interaction that a customer has
with your company. Among other things, this helps you notify them with product or sales
event information that they’ve demonstrated interest in.
 Scheduling and reminders. This feature lets you reach out to clients with important
updates regarding things like new products or services or offerings related to their
purchase history. Let’s say you own a mattress company. Your CRM could send a
reminder to a customer who made a purchase eight years ago, letting them know that
their mattress may be nearing the end of its life span and they should consider buying a
new one.

CUSTOMER SERVICE DIMENSIONS IN SUPPLY CHAIN
PERSPECTIVE
The role of customer service in the supply chain management is not incidental. Every company
in this chain, irrespective of market size mainly they thankful to its customers as the fact is that
in all profit of firm there are customers are in center whom to buy the goods and services
produced by each one of them.
1. Tangibility
 Tangibility is the appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and
communication materials.
 Customers tend to expect clean and professional facilities and shops, employees who
look groomed and neat, and well-written and designed materials such as menus,
websites, and signs. Attention to appearance can indicate that your company takes
customer comfort seriously.
 While appearance is not the most critical aspect of service, it does make a difference in
how customers perceive your business, especially if your brand promises a premium or
luxury experience.

2. Reliability
 Reliability is the ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.
 Doing what you say you’re going to do when you say you’re going to do it is essential
to pleasing your customers.
3. Responsiveness
 Responsiveness is the willingness to help customers and provide prompt service.
 Responding quickly to customer questions and concerns is vital, especially in today’s
fast-paced world. Responsiveness even applies when customers are slow in responding
to you. Answer swiftly to, at the very least, let customers know that you’re working on
their request.
 Responsiveness lets your customers know that you’re listening to them and working
actively to solve their problems.
4. Assurance
Assurance is the knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and
confidence.
Customers expect businesses to be the experts in the service they deliver. Communicating that
expertise to customers helps reassure them that they can trust you, whether you accomplish this
by displaying credentials and industry certifications or customer testimonials.
Assurance is significant when customers have many options but aren’t sure who to trust when
purchasing. Suppose you run an ecommerce store, for example. In that case, customers are
bombarded regularly with ads from potentially untrustworthy online shops all day, so you need
to determine how to set yourself apart and gain consumer trust.
5. Empathy
Empathy is the caring, individualized attention the firm provides its customers.
Customers want to feel like they’re more than a transaction; they want to build a relationship
with your business. Even if you have the best product or services on the market, you can still
fall short of their expectations.

Other Service Quality Dimensions
 Time
 Completeness
 Courtesy
 Consistency
ORDER DELIVERY LEAD TIME
Delivery lead time is the period between when an order is placed and when that order is
delivered. Delivery lead time tells a company how far in advance it needs to place an order for
the delivery to arrive on time. It is one of the most important metrics for managing supply chains
and inventory.

FACTORS AFFECTING LEAD TIME
1. Stock outs
2. Lead time variability
3. Shipping delays
4. Unnecessary processes
5. Inefficient inventory control

WHY IS LEAD TIME IMPORTANT?
1. Competitive edge
2. Better productivity
3. Cost reduction
4. Customer satisfaction
5. Project dependencies
COMPONENTS OF LEAD TIME
1. Preprocessing time: This is also referred to as the planning time, and it includes the time
taken to receive a request for replenishment, understand it and create a purchase order (when
buying an item), or create a job in the case of a manufacturing firm.
2. Processing time: The processing time is the time taken after receiving a purchase order to
procure or produce the item.
3. Waiting time: The waiting time is the time that’s taken between procuring necessary items to
the time when the production process commences.
4. Storage time: Storage time is the amount of time that items stay in the warehouse or factory
awaiting delivery.
5. Transportation time: The transportation time is the time that the produced item takes to
move from the warehouse/factory to the customer.
6. Inspection time: The inspection time is the time spent by the customer checking the product
to see if it meets the specifications. It also refers to the time required to deal with any non-
conformity with the order request.

HOW TO REDUCE LEAD TIME
1. Create contracts with all your suppliers that include defined timeframes.
2. Reduce or eliminate non-value-adding tasks.
3. Source from local suppliers.
4. Place smaller orders more frequently.
5. Consider changing shipping methods.
6. Offer incentives to suppliers.
7. Automate your inventory management.
8. Share sales data with your suppliers.
CUSTOMER RESPONSIVENESS
 It is the ability of a business to respond to customer inquiries or service requests in a
timely manner.
 customer responsiveness indicates how fast and efficiently a company responds to
customers.

CUSTOMER CHURN
Customer churn happens when customers decide to not continue purchasing products/services
from an organization and end their association. Customer attrition, also known as customer
churn, customer turnover, or customer defection, is the loss of clients or customers.
CUSTOMER ADVOCACY
Customer advocacy is the act of building and nurturing relationships with loyal customers,
who then act as spokespeople and champions for your brand, products, or services.

HOW TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER RESPONSIVENESS AND
CREATE A BETTER CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
1. Understand your customers
2. Leverage the power of technology
3. Provide consistent support experience
4. Provide resources for self-support
5. Train your employees
6. Make use of canned responses and incorporate personalization
7. Set performance goals and monitor individual customer response time
8 RULES FOR GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE

DELIVERY RELIABILITY
Delivery reliability (DR) is a term that is used to describe the number of deliveries to customers
that are considered free of any type of error on the part of the vendor or shipper in comparison to
the total number of deliveries that take place within a specified period of time.

WHAT IS DELIVERY PERFORMANCE?

Delivery Performance is the level that measures how much the organization can meet the
standards expected by its customers. It is an essential aspect of supply chain management as it
shows how well the firm can deliver goods on time, using planned resources, without any extra
cost to the business. It is also known to reflect a firm’s potential to satisfy customers’ needs.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) for Delivery Performance usually focus on operational
factors such as order fulfillment rates, lead time, stock-outs, etc. However, you should also
consider strategic elements such as customer satisfaction, market share, and brand equity.
Delivery performance formula
Delivery Performance (DP) = percentage of orders that were delivered on time / Total
number of orders
Calculation of On-time delivery rate

PRODUCT VARIETY
Increasing product variety might have strong impact on a firm’s business operations. However,
more product variety may increase the manufacturing costs and complexity. Increasing product
variety causes higher complexity of demand forecasting and matching of supply with demand in
the supply chain.
Therefore, companies increasing variety in their product lines should also understand the impact
of product variety on all relevant costs and the various functions performed by its
manufacturing, marketing, logistics, purchasing, and engineering departments.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a technology for managing all your company's
relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. The goal is simple: Improve
business relationships. A CRM system helps companies stay connected to customers, streamline
processes, and improve profitability.

**********************

CUSTOMER FOCUS IN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to CUSTOMER FOCUS IN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

Similar to CUSTOMER FOCUS IN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT (20)

More from Acharya Institute of Graduate Studies

More from Acharya Institute of Graduate Studies (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

CUSTOMER FOCUS IN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT