Southern Cross
Involved In Discussions
There have been some shifts in responsibilities in the organization where I work, which has resulted in me taking over the Order Fulfilment complaints, as well as the Product Quality responsibilities. We've had 14 OF complaints in the last 13 months, so I figured it wouldn't add much to my workload.
After the announcement, one of our sales reps approached me. She told me that she had been forbidden from reporting any OF complaints, other than the most serious issues. She could write 20 per month if allowed. She says that she spends most of her time cleaning up after these problems.
Then I went looking to confirm that the problem is widespread. Talking to other sales reps, sure enough, it is. Problems have not been reported for years. So the problems seem to grow out of the Customer Service/Orders department. Order entry errors, missed instructions, all sorts of failures. Some appear to be minor or random.
Certainly part of the root cause is systematic - our Customer Service people are pretty new, still being trained (and therefore more prone to make mistakes). Turnover is high. This appears to be due to them being faced with dissatisfaction from customers and sales reps. Vicious cycle in play.
If I go ahead and encourage the reps to freely report complaints, I'm going to be snowed under. And my work on product quality will suffer. I'm going to speak to management (hopefully today) about my findings.
Any input would be welcome.
After the announcement, one of our sales reps approached me. She told me that she had been forbidden from reporting any OF complaints, other than the most serious issues. She could write 20 per month if allowed. She says that she spends most of her time cleaning up after these problems.
Then I went looking to confirm that the problem is widespread. Talking to other sales reps, sure enough, it is. Problems have not been reported for years. So the problems seem to grow out of the Customer Service/Orders department. Order entry errors, missed instructions, all sorts of failures. Some appear to be minor or random.
Certainly part of the root cause is systematic - our Customer Service people are pretty new, still being trained (and therefore more prone to make mistakes). Turnover is high. This appears to be due to them being faced with dissatisfaction from customers and sales reps. Vicious cycle in play.
If I go ahead and encourage the reps to freely report complaints, I'm going to be snowed under. And my work on product quality will suffer. I'm going to speak to management (hopefully today) about my findings.
Any input would be welcome.