Putting Your Customers' Needs First

o Customer versus Company Perception … for the most part, our measurements are all based on how we shipped the material…not how the customer received it! Therefore, their perception of what is occurring can be quite different from ours. • Split shipments…we make large initial LTL (less-than-truckload) shipment on Friday to customer…on that same day, a single line item ships from another warehouse or plant to the customer on this same order via parcel. The parcel arrives first at customer destination and gets received as the initial shipment (much lower fill rate than what we would have calculated based on shipment date). • Same scenario as above but both LTL and parcel shipment arrive at customer’s receiving area on the same day. Receiving clerk has option of receiving on one parcel package or 3 skids of material…guess which choice he/she makes. They receive on the parcel item first…again, with the result of customer having calculated a lower fill rate. • Entering customer orders via EDI is not only more efficient but it is faster and more accurate as well. Real time order entry with 98% of our EDI order lines going directly to Distribution Centers/plants without human intervention helps companies improve their service measurements to their customers. Convincing customers to use EDI and web for order entry makes good business sense for both company and the customer. Manual entry will delay order processing and potentially adversely impact your performance measurements. • Customer expedites one line on new order for air shipment or customer requests that a new line be added to an existing order entered the same day for immediate shipment. The expedite or new added line will result in a low fill rate for the company even though you are doing exactly what the customer asked you to do. • Customer making a mistake by receiving item(s) against the wrong P.O. can compromise performance measurements. That is why having good, easy-to- understand shipping papers is essential to receiving your company’s material accurately and timely into customer’s system is so important. Also, EDI advanced ship notices are important in helping to prevent these errors. • Obviously, undeliverable items or damaged merchandise or other shipping errors will adversely affect measurement results even though your company will report the item as shipped okay. • Item/Order can be reported as shipped in your company’s system but has not yet left your facility (carrier has not picked up the material yet…after daily cutoff, weekend, holiday, etc.) • Carrier transit time varies depending upon weight of the order and method of shipment. Manufacturers tend to consider their job done when the material is shipped or very least leaves their facility…but, until the material is received and accepted by the customer destination… the customer measurement cycle is not complete ! o Make Sure You Measure the Right Things … for example, if you are trying to measure your success rate at converting your customers from manual fax order entry to EDI and/or online Web order entry, what should you emphasize … orders, lines or dollars. Well, you should display all three parameters; however, ORDER LINES best represent the “work content”