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Benchmarking End Customer Experience in today’s supply chains
How well are businesses optimizing their supply chains for the end customer experience? Explore key findings from our Benchmarking report and what sets leaders apart.
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What is End Customer Experience in supply chain?
The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically altered consumer behavior in the marketplace. In our 2021 customer experience survey, we found that 44 percent of respondents preferred buying online with home delivery, up 25 percent from pre-pandemic preferences (19%). Now in the post-pandemic era, consumers are still making most of their purchases online. As a result, consumer expectations are higher than ever in terms of cost, choice, and speed of delivery.
Meeting their expectations to create a superior customer experience is essential for business success. If they don’t get exactly what they want and how they want it, they have a host of other businesses to turn to. Consumers want to pay less, receive their items faster, and work with businesses that make the buying process convenient. To do so, organizations must find new methods to keep up with competitors poised to steal customers and the rising demand in the e-commerce marketplace.
Benchmarking today’s supply chain
In 2022, Infios launched a research project aiming to understand the underlying factors that drive supply chain complexity. The research project resulted in the identification of six operational areas:
2. Digitization and Process Automation
5. Labor Engagement, Safety and Efficiency
In response to these rising complexities, Infios then commissioned its first ever Supply Chain Benchmarking survey. The research was designed to assess current supply chain best practices and establish benchmarks. The results, based on a representative survey among more than 200 companies, shed unparalleled insight into the industry and best practices to improve supply chain operations and performance. Participants were scored and categorized into four maturity levels: leader, advanced, developing and initiating.
Our Benchmarking survey found that the maturity levels for the complexity factor End Customer Experience were as follows: Leaders, at 28 percent, are the second largest category for this complexity factor. Half of the total respondents ranked as advanced at 50 percent, 19 percent of respondents were considered to be developing, and 3 percent were initiating.
What distinguishes leaders from the rest?
In our Benchmarking survey, 92 percent of respondents said that a strong supply chain is critical to customer satisfaction. However, only 28 percent of organizations fell into the leader category for End Customer Experience. If customer experience and satisfaction is ranked so high in importance, why and where are so many organizations’ supply chains falling short? What exactly is it that leaders are doing differently from their peers?
In truth, there are a variety of solutions, strategies and technologies they are implementing to improve their End Customer Experience.
Key strategies for End Customer Experience
One of the key factors leaders have in common is the use of a network-wide Order Management System (OMS). These go beyond their own in-house warehouses and Transportation Management Systems (TMS) and reach into the systems of their customers and partners. Overall, leaders feel a responsibility for the whole supply chain, from end-to-end, and not just their part of it.
In fact, 100 percent of them use an OMS or Distributed Order Management system (DOM) to manage order fulfillment across all facilities. Advanced organizations are following in their footsteps with 55 percent employing these types of software for this purpose as well.
Today’s customers expect a convenient shopping experience that includes shopping across multiple channels, such as Buy Online, Pick Up In Store (BOPIS). An OMS enables that experience. Another key aspect is that in today’s omnichannel shopping environment, inventory is distributed across multiple channels – at the vendor, the distribution center, e-fulfillment providers and stores. Gaining full visibility across all these channels shows what inventory is actually available to fulfill orders. This allows businesses to make accurate delivery promises and fulfill them fast and reliably. An OMS also offers the ability to provide updates to customers at every step of the order journey - from clicking the buy button to delivery – and helps facilitate frictionless returns and exchanges, making for a great customer experience.
Both of these capabilities are supported by OMS and DOM software solutions, enabling faster and more accurate order processing. This in turn helps to increase satisfaction and build a sense of brand loyalty.
Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) digitize and connect the entire operation, helping organizations manage and automate every task, process and resource in the warehouse. Implementing a WMS boosts operational efficiency and productivity while improving transparency, planning and accuracy. By staying connected, organizations can achieve higher levels of visibility into their operations.
The capabilities of WMS – including inventory accuracy, picking, put-away, receiving, shipping, stock allocation, inventory management, etc. – assist organizations to optimize order fulfillment and delivery across their supply chain network. This is increasingly important, as customers value faster deliveries, accurate tracking and quality of service the most during the delivery process. Supply chain professionals have made positive progress towards faster fulfillment, as 86 percent of leaders say they can process orders through their warehouse in four hours or less. In contrast, 49 percent of advanced supply chains claim the same timeframe.
Additionally, other technologies such as Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) and voice technology both increase accuracy and speed of order fulfillment in the warehouse. Getting deliveries out exactly as the customer ordered them in the promised timeframe is essential for a great buying experience.
These solutions also help manage the effects of SKU proliferation, including inventory complexity and growing numbers of orders with fewer articles, more effectively. This is a challenge around 87 percent of leaders and 47 percent of advanced organizations can tackle.
Improve your organization’s End Customer Experience with Infios
Currently, End Customer Experience is seen as a critical component of a strong supply chain, yet few professionals are leading in this category. In the coming years, the focus on customer experience should increase, as they are always right and not catering to them may mean they go somewhere else. For this reason, a superior customer experience is essential for business success and survival. Infios’s OMS and WMS solutions can help businesses improve areas of their supply chain that, in turn, benefit the end experience of their consumers.
Want to learn more on what current supply chain End Customer Experience leaders are doing? Visit our benchmarking practice or download the full Benchmarking report for more details on the survey results.
For further insight on the complexity factor End Customer Experience based on the Supply Chain Benchmarking survey, have a look at our resources below.
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