MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION
The supply chain management process is about more than just making sure there’s a regular flow of materials and products available for customers. Without a strong focus on customer service in supply chain management, you can hurt your reputation, customer satisfaction, and loyalty. Meeting customer expectations and providing a consistent positive experience must be crucial parts of your supply chain strategy.
Key Components of Customer Service in Supply Chain Management
Here’s an example of the disconnect customers often feel in supply chains. 76% of customers expect consistent interactions across sales, service, and marketing. Yet, more than half say this just doesn’t happen.
Developing a customer-centric mindset across your entire supply chain. Key components include:
- Effective communication to keep customer information about supply chain operations, order and delivery status, and delays.
- Responsive problem-solving to promptly and effectively resolve customer inquiries and concerns.
- Agility to adapt to changing circumstances or supply chain disruptions and find alternative solutions.
- Building trust and confidence with customers to alleviate concerns and foster loyalty.
- Fostering collaboration with supply chain partners to strengthen relationships.
To live up to these goals, you need real-time data about your operations and supply management, including supply chain management logistics and a centralized database to provide this level of interaction. Connected supply chain systems (SCM systems) that are accessible to everyone throughout the supply chain are the only way to provide the consistent and accurate information that customers demand. This requires detailed information about supply chain production, accurate inventory counts, up-to-the-minute information on supply chain logistics, and realistic delivery dates. You need an end-to-end solution that ties together information from your suppliers, manufacturers, warehouses, and logistics providers.
The Impact of Customer Service on Supply Chain Efficiency
Customers today expect personalized, connected, and timely communication. They demand a transparent process with visibility into the fulfillment process and timely delivery. They expect to be notified immediately of any potential delays and knowledgeable customer service representatives to handle their concerns.
It’s a lot.
But, it’s essential.
PwC says that three out of four customers say the experience they have with a brand is a “deciding factor” when choosing among competing brands.
McKinsey puts it this way: “Customer care leaders are facing their greatest challenges in decades.” Amid rising call volumes, high levels of employee turnover, and persistent talent shortages, customer demands are going unmet — despite significant efforts to create happy customers.
When you get it right, it provides significant benefits.
Enhance Brand Reputation and Trust
When you can meet — or exceed — customer expectations, you build trust. Accurate, consistent, and reliable customer service has always been a hallmark of top-performing companies. Providing this level of care across all touchpoints in the supply chain demonstrates that you truly do value your customers.
Trust may be your single biggest asset or weakness. 81% of customers say they need to trust the brand they buy from. A single poor customer service experience can undermine even top brands.
Contribute to Customer Loyalty and Retention
Inmar Intelligence survey data revealed that 89% of customers purchased from alternate brands in the last year. Whether they were looking for lower prices or better customer service, that’s a lot of churn. Since it’s always less expensive to retain customers than to acquire new ones, your supply chain processes must include strategies to foster loyalty and retention.
Driving loyalty goes beyond just satisfying customers. A Gartner study found that one in five customers who said they were satisfied with their provider still planned to shift business elsewhere. You’ve got to deliver an exceptional experience to drive repeat business and mitigate attrition.
For companies willing to invest in SCM systems and create a customer-centric culture, there’s a significant upside. For example, accurate inventory counts and demand forecasting can help avoid stockouts. Stockouts are more than just speed bumps for companies. It often drives customers directly to your competitors and they may never return.
Improve Operational Efficiency and Reducing Costs
By proactively addressing customer concerns and resolving issues quickly, organizations can streamline their supply chain operations — minimizing the need for costly rework or expensive reverse logistics. Efficient communication and proactive problem-solving reduce the burden on customer service teams, empowering them to spend more time enhancing the customer experience and participating in revenue-generating activities like upsells and cross-sells.
This has become increasingly important with today’s omnichannel supply chains. Disjointed systems, fragmented data, and worse — inaccurate inventory counts — can hinder operational efficiency and drive up fulfillment costs.
How To Enhance Customer Service in Supply Chain Management
Here are three keys to enhancing customer service in supply chain management.
Improve Supply Chain Visibility
Without accurate, real-time data, you simply cannot provide the customer service levels today’s customers demand. From suppliers to warehouses, localization and lane assignments, yard management, supply chain logistics, and last-mile deliveries, you must have complete visibility into your inventory, asset management, and overall supply chain. IoT sensors, scanners, and other hardware — coupled with the right SCM platform — can create the real-time visibility you need.
Develop KPIs
You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) across your supply chain can help you:
- Analyze patterns over time to identify trends, bottlenecks, and areas that need improvement
- Measure progress on initiatives to improve customer service in supply chain management
- Track your supply chain health and resiliency to mitigate risk
- Make adjustments to your supply chain strategy based on leading indicators
These KPIs, and others, can help your operations and customer service teams to make more informed, data-driven decisions about your supply chain and customer experience.
Solicit Customer Feedback
Don’t wait for customers to tell you there is a problem. By the time that happens, you’re already losing sales. Proactively soliciting customer feedback at each stage of the supply chain and fulfillment process can yield insights into areas where you need to make improvements and measure progress.
Get Real-Time Visibility of Your Supply Chain Operations and Assets
Supply chain disruptions happen, but knowing about them can help you offer better customer service. Keeping your customer informed at every step, with up-to-date information is critical to delivering on your customer service goals and delivering high levels of customer service in supply chain management.
Surgere creates and manages IoT supply chain solutions, providing real-time intelligence, 99.9% data accuracy, and actionable insights to power leading businesses. Contact Surgere today to see how we can help your business grow and solve your supply chain challenges.