In a down economy, the importance of loyalty-building customer satisfaction is crucial. While customer attrition at anytime is a problem, in a recession it can be catastrophic. In the world of foodservice supply chains, customer service also extends to trading partners, including restaurant chains, manufacturers and distributors. How well you collaborate with your trading partners affects your ability to serve your customers.

It’s always good to be reminded how valuable good customer service is. The cost of losing a customer is high and the cost of acquiring new ones is higher still. Take, for example, what the best-selling book The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits and Lasting Value revealed more than a decade ago: Winning a new customer costs a business five times as much as it does to keep an existing one. As this historic recession loosens its grip on the economy, all businesses need to tighten their grip on high customer and trading partner satisfaction.

At ArrowStream, customer satisfaction is our highest priority in all economies-weak, strong and anything in between. The unique and collaborative approach we use when working with our customers is one of the most important ways we fuel innovation. Just as our customers depend on ArrowStream supply chain technologies and solutions to transform operational efficiency and slash business costs, we count on our customers to help us develop and refine our solutions to maximum effectiveness.

So how do we tackle the important work of achieving high levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty? First, we have adopted an everyday approach to cultivating customer satisfaction and loyalty. Not “everyday” in terms of ordinary, but “everyday” in terms of occurrence. Our entire team-from executive leadership and senior managers to help desk specialists and administrative staff-is trained to make listening to our clients a key aspect of their workday. Whether through regular client check-in calls and meetings, site visits, quarterly business reviews or reading industry trade publications, ArrowStream staff members are engaged and listening  to clients. We know that one of our constant jobs is to stay apprised of the challenges our clients face so ArrowStream can always be a part of the solution.

We believe this is a very smart approach to trading partner relationships as well. Taking time to step back and listen to your trading partners’ issues and concerns can lead to clever solutions you may not have arrived at on your own.

ArrowStream also uses regular surveys and conferences to improve our understanding of client needs. Our biannual customer satisfaction surveys allow us to receive candid, thoughtful feedback from clients into our performance, what we can do better and where ArrowStream is making the biggest difference in their operations. Because we conduct the survey twice a year, we can measure our progress and ensure we are using the insights clients give us to improve our performance.

Our Annual Customer Conference brings together ArrowStream clients from across the country to one central industry forum. Now going into our third year, the two-day event gives ArrowStream’s business leaders, developers, account managers and service professionals the chance to sit down face-to-face with individual clients to get detailed business insights, discuss needs and look at opportunities to improve solutions and results. Clients have the opportunity to share what is working well, ask tough questions to our team and share ideas for innovations and advancements. Also, in bringing the leaders from across the foodservice industry together, we create an exceptional brain trust of experts, whose ideas and industry knowledge invigorate and challenge our team.

Because supply chain trading partners will not have time to survey and conference all year long, they should take advantage of built-in collaboration systems, such as the ArrowStream Network, - the largest, most extensive trading system of 4,000+ restaurant chains, distributors and manufacturers in the foodservice industry.  Representing almost 10 percent of the industry and moving more than $15 billion of product annually, ArrowStream Network members gain operational benefits, take advantage of economies of scale and share information on product, contract, pricing, inventory and freight.

Whether your business likes it or not, your trading partners play a role in your customer satisfaction capabilities. So let them in on your plans and goals and listen to theirs. Collaboration across the supply chain only improves performance for the better of all.  And, in our constant quest to know our clients and keep them tremendously satisfied, ArrowStream has found that every tiny bit of effort that goes into client satisfaction is returned in the highest and best of dividends. The bottom line-the more you invest in improving customer satisfaction, the more engaged, collaborative and happy your clients are. And who can argue with an ROI like that?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 30th, 2010 at 7:42 pm and is filed under Distributors, Manufacturers, Restaurant Chains, Supply Chain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.