Today we handed out a Nintendo Wii game console to a lucky customer. Cindy stopped by and congratulated Sylvia from Watson Wyatt, who was the winner of our Customer Survey draw.
As most of our customers would have seen from our emails and website, we conducted a Customer Survey last week. Thanks to the over 300 customers who participated. The response and feedback was incredible.
For any of you who did not get a chance to fill out the survey, please
click here to participate. Your feedback will really help us be the best we can be.
I wanted to share some of the results on how we are doing and to let you know we are listening.
Customer Service - Overall, customers gave us very high marks on the customer service side. We will continue to improve on product knowledge, and focus more on communicating and out-of-stocks and substitutions. There were a few comments that some of our phone staff is "too happy and chipper - it must be fake", but really they are all like that in the office, happy, laughing and loving their jobs. Customers comment also that our atmosphere seems really fun and some have actually asked to come work here. Anyways, good feedback.
Delivery Drivers - Almost perfect marks for our drivers!!! I was so proud to hear the bonds they had made with customers. Most singled them out by name, commenting things like "Mo places our order in the kitchen and puts our milk in the fridge, we love him!!"
Accounting Department - An area we can improve on. Customer feedback was, we could speed up all levels of communication and credits. Point taken, and immediately we put the wheels in action to bring Bill from Purchasing back over to Accounting to help Darrin and Wendy. You should hear from Bill in mid September, once he wraps up commitments in the purchasing department.
Warehouse - High marks for order accuracy, but there was a concern around one supplier who seems to be the route of most of our errors. This supplier ships to us "pre picked" and we needed to ensure the order in the box was picked correctly. Of the approximately 50 order errors we track each month (out of 4000 orders), this supplier was responsible for 75% of them. We have spoken to the supplier, and they in turn have put a double check on all shipments to us. In addition, we added incentives to our Quality Control manager to continue his diligent efforts to reduce any errors.
Communication - It seems we can do a better job communicating with customers. Over 40% of customers responded they didn't know we sold copy paper, and over 60% didn't know that we sold toners. Our goal is to be a single source supplier of consumable products to our customers. We need to let customers know what we sell in some new ways. Powerful stuff!
Pricing - About two thirds of customers responded we had great prices, while the remainder felt we could do better. Of the customers who felt we were priced high, most were comparing us to "non delivered" competitors, such as Costco or London Drugs.
We are always looking at our pricing strategy and we want to be competitive. If customers ever see a lower delivered price we will automatically beat the price. One important note is that we will create custom contract price lists for customers on the items that are most important to them. So consider our catalogue and web prices a start for smaller orders and when you need help on a price or want to order big, we can work with you on pricing. Our company has succeeded for 18 years on service, convenience, selection and our flexibility to work with customers. Please don't leave and buy somewhere else if you see our price is not what you are looking for. Give us a chance to work with you. (Thanks!)
Web Site - I'd say this one caught me by surprise. We received lower marks than expected for our shopping cart. High marks for the front end specials and graphics (great job, Erin). We have had the same shopping cart for over 5 years now and it does about 65% of our sales. But to keep up with the times, the feedback was to have a better search and a fresh look. I am happy to say we have accelerated our plans to revamp our website, and will be working diligently to roll out our new and improved site over the next 6 months.
I also promoted one of our inside sales people, Chris Craven, to the position of Company Ambassador, and she will be visiting customers to train them on our current website. It still is a great site once you have some training and we do a bit of customizing to take advantage of all the powerful features.
Well, it looks like I have some work to do. Thanks again for the incredible feedback, you really are the best group of customers any company could wish to have.
Cheers,
Calvin
Now here is a sale to "shred the competition." We were able to negotiate a great deal on shredders and purchased 500. So instead of selling them, we thought we would just give them away! Yup, for FREE! 
As you read in my August 11th entry, some customers did not know we sold copy paper and toners. So we came up with a great sale for the remainder of August: Copy paper for $25.00 per case when you buy any toner! Since paper is usually $33.99 per case, this should be a great offer, and we always beat the competition on toner prices. Let's see how it goes!
The highlight of the conference had to be dinner on the deck of the famous USS Midway aircraft carrier. With a 40 piece big band playing, and the entire flight deck filled with people under a star filled San Diego summer night - it was a most memorable time for all of us.