Feedback and Customer Satisfaction in Logistics

Managers can utilise feedback to improve the company’s customer service effectiveness. This will usually require monitoring and assisting individual staff. Because these staff constitute the company-customer interface and are potentially the first and last point of contact between the company and potential customers, they are critical elements in the company’s ability to generate and sustain revenue. Monitoring, training, equipping, and otherwise assisting customer service staff are undertaken for the purpose of minimizing any issues that could lead to customer dissatisfaction. There are three main ways of measuring customer service:

1. Customer evaluations/feedback. Comments from customers regarding their experience of customer services is extremely valuable. This can take the form of an online survey, free-form e-mail response, telephone dial-pad selection, or text messages. However it is gathered, the content is likely to be beneficial. Companies can get direct feedback on their performance, and make necessary adjustments for improvement. Strengths and weaknesses can both be identified – the former then maximised, and the latter systematically addressed. Lessons learnt can be shared and an empirical case for customer service strategy development can also be built.
2. Peer evaluations and feedback. Fellow practitioners can share insights and methods, and provide constructive feedback to colleagues who lack experience or require additional assistance. Feedback from peers can also be informally provided and offered as-and-when required, in real-time. Effective working relationships can result from knowledge and knowhow sharing; likewise, knowledge and knowhow sharing can lead to effective working relationships and a positive company culture of professionalism. In customer service scenarios, it is important that all representatives of the company are equally proficient at handling customer requests. If the customer is aware that one person in the customer service team is particularly helpful, then the skill level in the team will appear imbalanced and the company may become overly reliant on that individual. This is a negative instance of the 80/20 phenomenon.  
3. Performance review-based evaluations and feedback. This is a more formal version of the peer evaluation. It will be structured, ideally according to a policy, and scheduled – or initiated following identification of a problem or request from the customer service representative. Skills advice and additional training can be offered. Staff can be assigned to shadow more experienced staff, create reports, submit self-evaluations, and invited to identify their own informational or training needs. Managers and supervisors can offer advice and might even be able to accommodate a worker’s requests for new technologies, training, or adjustments to the workplace environment. Reports by managers and supervisors will be evidence based and shared with the employee in a transparent and helpful manner.  

External customers are sometimes referred to as “end customers” or “consumers”. They are people who not employed by the organisation but transact with it for the purpose of obtaining the company’s products or services. Typically, the external customer is a shopper, buying domestic or personal products or services for their individual or family needs. However, customers of warehousing or logistics services are typically businesses. Those business will however have their customers too, who may well be individuals or families. Whether a company is B2B or B2C, the customer is their primary – if not only – source of revenue so must be satisfied and positively engaged with. 

For any business, customer satisfaction is critical to performance. Whether B2B or B2C, companies benefit from pleased customers, since they are more likely than displeased customers to continue paying for the company’s products and services – and recommend the same to others. In the age of social media, publicity – both good and bad – is very easily generated. External customers can thus become a source of business creation or business loss, depending on their experience with the company.