Customer service is key to long-term business success, but why are some glass companies so much better at it than others? And how do you get ahead – and stay ahead – of what everyone else is doing?
In all the years that Jotika has been supplying software to the glass business, I’ve seen there are two critical elements to customer service. Firstly there is the professionalism and communication, but more than that it is making sure you deliver on your promises.
When a customer calls or emails you with an order, your salespeople need to know whether or not to accept it; whether you would be able to make everything they want, in time. Your staff need systems that show them clearly whether you have the capacity for that job, based on your current and planned order book.
Equally, for those customers who prefer to place their orders electronically, your systems need to offer them a delivery date there and then. It’s no longer acceptable to say yes in principle, only to let them down later.
In this business, what customers really care about is getting the glass they need to do their work on time. So as the owner of a glass business you need to continually monitor your OTIF figures, so you know what percentage of goods were delivered on the target date, and by how much others were delayed.
But knowing how well you are doing is only the start. In order to improve and stay ahead, you need to look deeper at the data: what were the reasons why each of those orders got delayed? Are there patterns in which processes, workstations or raw materials are causing problems?
Of-course it’s possible to do this by sleuthing through a load of paper records, but far more efficient (and likely to get done regularly) if you are gathering this level of data electronically and can drill down easily from your dashboard or reporting system.
Everyone makes mistakes occasionally, and in the glass industry it’s hard to eliminate breakages. That is why it’s so important that you are geared up to re-make quickly. As much as anything you need systems that allow you to reschedule production, prioritising the cutting and processing of the extra items so you can be sure they will catch up with the rest of the order.
If an order starts to slip, you can often reduce the impact on the customer by letting them know as early as possible. Your production system needs to flag-up any order which is at risk of late delivery, whether that is because production is backing up in a particular area, or a piece has been broken and needs more time to be re-made.
Ever more glass manufacturers are using barcode scanning to track the progress of individual pieces of glass around the factory. This provides a huge leap forward, with both real-time information about customer orders, but also generating detailed data for process improvement.
Your staff scan the barcode on each piece of glass as it comes in and out of their workstation. This allows your system to monitor progress of entire customer orders, to provide updates to customers and to warn you if a job is at risk of slipping its deadline.
Your production manager has a live dashboard which allows them to constantly review progress and ensure work-to lists are balanced.
By tracking the movement of every piece of glass through the factory, you are generating data which offer detailed insights into production flow, bottlenecks and other performance issues which you can focus on and improve.
No matter how well your sales and production work, it all has to come together in dispatch, one of the busiest parts of the business.
When your staff are loading glass onto stillages and into trucks, it’s essential that every piece of glass is accounted for. If just one piece of glass is put onto the wrong stillage, then another customer order is going to be short.
With Gtrak Load Assist, every item is scanned before it is loaded and anything out of place raises an alarm. As well as eliminating errors, this system makes loading and checking far faster, so you can get the goods to your customers sooner.
With this degree of automation, it is a simple step to send customers updates with precise delivery times, so they can optimise their work around the delivery. And if you want to go one step further you can send them detailed packing lists, so they know where to take each stillage on site and can quickly find each piece of glass when they need it.
Is your business software doing everything you need to delivering outstanding customer service? Read more about Gtrak or contact us to discuss how we could help.