A SINGULAR APPROACH

Creating a consistent approach to customer service is no small feat for multi-branch distributors

By -- Industrial Distribution, 2/1/2001

If the customer's status as "king" was ever in question in the distribution industry, it certainly isn't now. And as the customer's status grows, so does distributors' concern about how well, and how consistently, customers are being treated. Distributors are increasingly aware that it may only take one honest blunder or one mistreatment for a customer to walk out their door and seek retribution at a competitive company.

Achieving a consistently high level of customer service becomes trickier when a company has multiple branches-and it can be even more elusive when mergers and acquisitions require the integration of previously independent companies. Despite these complications, it may never have been more important.

"Customer service consistency is extremely important," says Karen Leland of the Sterling Consulting Group. "From the customer's point of view, it's important that they see your company as one company. One [branch] represents the many-and consistent service is critical if companies want to create one brand or one reputation."

Century Fasteners, headquartered in Elmhurst, N.Y., and Barnes Distribution, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, are among the distribution firms addressing the challenge of providing consistent customer service.

Century Fasteners' 13 branches operate on a traditional distribution model, with outside sales having the most direct customer contact and inside sales and other branch-based employees having secondary contact with customers either on the phone or face-to-face with walk-in traffic. Barnes Distribution is in the midst of integrating its Bowman Distribution and Curtis Industries divisions, both of which operate on a strong direct sales basis with little customer contact at its 15 U.S. and 13 international locations, which primarily perform order fulfillment functions.

Both Century and Barnes-with the added input from customer service expert and co-author of "Customer Service for Dummies" Karen Leland-offer a glimpse at the range of perspectives and initiatives with which multi-location distributors can approach the challenge of providing consistent customer service.

How important is service consistency?

Even if a distributorship has hundreds of locations, many customers may only visit the one location in their area. But the leaders at Century and Barnes, as well as Leland, say that's no reason not to strive for customer service consistency across all branches.

"As a multi-branch distributor, [customer service consistency] is of the highest importance," says Evan Stieglitz, president of Century Fasteners. "Everything we do at the corporate level is to ensure a consistent level of service and quality throughout the organization."

Tom Brodsky, executive vice president and treasurer for Century Fasteners, says that consistent customer service is especially important for distributors who serve customers with multiple locations.

"A good number of our customers are Fortune 500-type companies with many divisions around the country and they're expecting a consistent level of service," Brodsky says. "We depend on our name and our reputation and we want to make sure that we maintain that in all of our territories."

Leland notes that no matter who a distributor's customers are-how many branches they visit or how many of their own locations exist-how they are treated at each branch helps to create the reputation of the business. A distributor can never know the full extent of a customer's business network and how their impressions will spread through that network.

"It's about creating a reputation throughout your locations, and those reputations tend to build on each other," Leland says. "It's about the total brand-image or the total reputation of your business."

Evaluate your customer service

The starting point for any company that wants to maintain a consistent approach to customer service is to evaluate current service levels.

Leland suggests starting with a customer survey to determine how well your service is perceived by your customers, which will help determine service areas-or branch locations-that need to be improved.

"They need to survey their customers in each location so that they know which locations are strong and which are weak in customer service," Leland says. "The surveys should be consistent so that they allow for comparisons across branches."

Leland also recommends that companies simultaneously survey their staff in each location. In "Customer Service for Dummies," which Leland co-wrote with Keith Bailey, a "company-wide attitude survey" is described as one that helps assess three areas critical to forging strong links in the chain that determines the service your customers will receive: 1) how satisfied your staff members are with their jobs; 2) whether or not your company's channels of communication are open; and 3) whether or not your employees feel a sense of teamwork throughout the company.

Set direction from the top

Consistent customer service begins at the corporate level and filters down through the ranks.

"One of the most important things that companies have to have is a clear vision or purpose for customer care or customer service throughout all locations so that it's consistent," Leland says. "And it should come from senior management and have ownership throughout the organization."

Within several weeks of the Barnes Group's May 2000 acquisition of Curtis Industries, of Mayfield Heights, Ohio, the company established a vision statement for Barnes Distribution-the business unit that combined Barnes Group's Bowman Distribution with Curtis Industries. That vision statement stresses the company's desire to be the preferred choice for its customers, suppliers, financiers and investors, and for employees, which forms the basis of the philosophy behind its customer service approach.

Chris Zimmer was named director of customer service overseeing Bowman, Curtis and Mechanic's Choice, all under the Barnes Distribution umbrella. Although the three units' direct sales forces continue to operate largely independently, Zimmer is charged with overseeing the consistency of customer service available nationally throughout Barnes Distribution.

Zimmer formerly handled customer service for Curtis Industries, which operated with a centralized customer service function, whereas Bowman's customer service was decentralized-meaning that functions like taking phone/fax orders, responding to order problems, handling returns, credits, etc., were handled at individual branches.

"One of the first things I became exposed to with the merged company was that things were not necessarily handled consistently across each distribution center or each branch-even simple process issues," Zimmer says. "We aren't talking major inconsistencies, but you can create even minor imbalances. So we made a decision to centralize the customer service functions from our smaller customer service centers to here in Cleveland, to try and bring consistency and to afford much better coverage of calls and workload."

Barnes Distribution's approach to customer service is centered around a formal customer service department, which interacts with both external customers and with the company's nearly 1,000 salespeople. Mark Knight, director of product marketing, says it's important to note that consistency in how the customer service department interacts with its internal customers (the salespeople and other departments such as credit and collections) is as important as having a consistent service approach with external customers.

Create measurable service standards

Another key to creating consistent customer service across branches is to establish service standards, Leland says, which are objective, specific and measurable.

For Century Fasteners, such service standards revolve around human interactions.

For example, Century Fasteners has established the expectation that specific groups of employees are required to actively work at creating personal relationships with customers.

"The outside salesman has an almost daily presence at the customer's facility, but our inside salespeople are required to visit their customers at least twice a year," Stieglitz says. "Because business today-even business done electronically-is still dependent on personal relationships."

Brodsky adds that branch managers are also asked to get out of the office and meet with customers face-to-face.

Barnes Distribution points to a customer service standard that many distributors live and breathe by-order fill rates-as a critical measurement of service success.

"We have a very strict measurement with regard to order fill rate," Knight says. "We measure it daily and it's made visible to all employees and there's an expectation that everyone be cognizant of that figure."

"The first shipment that they receive solidifies the customer's first impression of how we're servicing them," Zimmer says. "It's probably the most important thing to the customer, and it's important at all levels of our organization, all the way up to the top."

Technology plays an important role

The first priority when it comes to technology, Leland says, is to use one user-friendly system and set of processes throughout the organization.

Technology is a critical component of the approach to customer service taken by both Barnes Distribution and Century Fasteners.

"We've developed, by trial and error and by experience, a system that we feel gives our customers the best service: the way our parts are packed, the way our labels are configured, and the way we ship product to our customers," Stieglitz says. "We've come up with a methodology that we think works best and we're confident that every customer is being served using that methodology. By having certain elements of our company centralized, we've been able to maintain consistency-and the computer and our quality program are the backbone of that consistency."

Brodsky says all of Century Fasteners' locations are linked by one computer system and that software for barcoding and other specific tasks is consistent from branch to branch.

At Barnes Distribution, the technology story is much the same. All branches are linked in real time to a single system that allows employees immediate access to information. In addition, Barnes has aggressively armed field sales reps with all the technology they need-scanners, lap top computers, etc.-to get orders processed as quickly as possible.

Training and continuous improvement

For both Barnes Distribution and Century Fasteners, their approaches to achieving customer service consistency throughout their organizations are linked to their ISO certification. In both cases, the ISO certification symbolizes a larger commitment to the continuous improvement that Leland says is essential.

Every new employee receives training specific to their position, and all employees receive ISO training, of which customer service is a part, Zimmer says. In addition, all internal audits of every department address customer service and require that every employee be familiar with the proper procedures to follow. Through the ISO process, the company also created an electronic customer complaint database that is used throughout the company.

"ISO has pulled us all together and made us all aware that customer service is not just the concern of one department taking phone calls," Zimmer says.

Stieglitz says Century's ISO certification has been an integral part of creating a foundation for consistent customer service that touches the entire organization, beginning with corporate leadership and then-through training-filtering down to all departments.

"Material management, information technology, sales, etc., all have elements that are feeding our efforts for customer service and consistency," Stieglitz says. "Good customer service is not just answering the phone and being nice. It's delivering the right products on time, anticipating customer needs and having the proper inventory. So what's behind that is an IT department, a quality department, a sales and marketing department, a materials department, and an administrative network that is set up to foster a high level of customer service and satisfaction."