Leveraging Your Supply Chain to Improve Customer Service

Shifting Consumer Behavior and Expectations Retailers delivering outstanding customer service understand what it takes to provide customers with the product that they want - down to style, color and size – when they want it, where they want it, and at the price they are willing to pay. Of course this problem is easy to solve with unlimited inventory and a willingness to overlook the bottom line. However, this is not a realistic approach. Retailers need to solve this complex customer service problem while minimizing capital tied up in inventory and, at the same time, maximizing margins.

A number of factors have converged, making it increasingly more difficult for retailers to deliver outstanding customer service. These include the emergence of new selling channels and shopping patterns, the price-conscious consumer created by the economic downturn and slow recovery, and the technology and information savvy shopper.

Retailers are facing more competition than ever before, in part due to the evolution of technology that has morphed the traditional shopping experience out of the brick-and mortar only world and into an omni-channel retailing experience. The omni-channel shopper who uses multiple channels to create a shopping plan and execute purchases is making it more difficult for retailers to predict and plan for consumer behavior.