Logistics Management Customer Service

Customer service is usually presumed to be away by which companies attempt to differentiate their product, keep customers loyal, increase sales, and improve profits.
Its elements are:

•  Price
•  Product quality
•  Service

It's an integral part of the marketing mix of:

• Price
• Product
• Promotion
• Physical Distribution
• Relative importance of service elements
• Physical distribution variables dominate price, product, and promotional
• considerations as customer service considerations
• Product availability and order cycle time are dominant physical distribution
• variables

Customer Service Elements

Common Customer Service Complaints

Most Important Customer Service Elements

• On-time delivery
• Order fill rate
• Product condition
• Accurate documentation

Order Cycle Time

Order cycle time contains the essential elements of customer service where logistics customer service is defined as:

- the time elapsed between when a customer order, order , or service request is placed by a customer and when it's received by that customer.

Order cycle elements

• Transport time
• Order transmittal time
• Order processing and assembly time
• Production time
• Stock availability

Constraints on order cycle time

• Order processing priorities
• Order condition standards (e.g., damage and filling accuracy)
• Order constraints (e.g., size minimum and placement schedule)

Components of a Customer Order Cycle

Importance of Logistics Customer Service

Service Level Optimization

An optimal inventory policy assumes a specific service level target.

What is the appropriate level of service?

• May be determined by the downstream customer
• Retailer may require the supplier, to maintain a specific service level
• Supplier will use that target to manage its own inventory
• Facility may have the flexibility to choose the appropriate level of service