Customer Service and Distribution Update for 2023
I’m very proud of our team for meeting their accuracy metric of .22% or fewer errors vs. lines shipped per month all but one of the last 19 months. Any mistakes made in our departments are very visible to the customer, and we want to ensure Fastco is viewed as competent and reliable to our customer base. They’ve done a great job the last year and a half with being accurate and thorough in their jobs, and in turn, serving our customers well. They’ve also managed to do this with the smallest crew that we have ever had in Customer Service & Distribution (CS/DS.)
Team Work and Meeting Goals
Our biggest goal as a team is to get as many shipments out by month’s end as possible. Customer Service looks for opportunities to move up orders and works with our customers to ship orders early when possible, while Distribution really pulls together at the end of each month to push out as many last-minute shipments as they possibly can to help Fastco reach its sales goals for the month.
Open Book Management as a Tool for Success
Open book management has given us all a better grasp on how we are doing as a company, and helps us to see the impact of the shipments we can make by the end of each month on our profits, which will hopefully turn those into profits that we can all share. It helps provide motivation and gives everyone a better idea of how they can impact our sales numbers through hustling on shipments, pushing for orders to ship early, or asking to sell excess inventory when available. The improved awareness has also made the team more mindful of looking out for little things we can do to save the company money and help the bottom line.
by Emily Bradfield, Customer Service & Distribution Team Leader