This article examines the differences in the off the peg or tailor‐made approaches to customer services. It also suggests trade‐off analysis as a means of determining what is most important to customers and how they will react to changes in particular services.

The degree of association between sophistication in distribution management and service performance differs across industries. While there are significant associations with some of the indicators of management sophistication in all three industries used in this study, there was no consistency in...

The term, customer service, covers all aspects of the transaction between the supplier and the customer, and includes elements of all major functional areas of a company. Customer service is detailed and customer priorities are identified with regard to seven types of retail outlets. It is...

Ask any manager what aspects of customer service are important to his customer and he may be able to tell you. An examination of the replies received from the various management roles will, however, often show a misunderstanding of what are important aspects of customer service to the customer.

Traditionally distribution service has been viewed as an ancillary part of the product, “a necessary evil”. As a consequence service levels tended to emerge over time to meet corporate goals. In the past managers would point out the fact that they had shipped 90 per cent of cases ordered...

Physical distribution management in New Zealand, is still, in many companies, subordinate to other functions in the corporate organisational hierarchy. In this study of three industries (Menswear, Foodstuffs and Pharmaceuticals) it was found that most distribution executives were responsible for...

This article outlines how one particular company sought to bring about inventory reductions, and hence cost savings, without reducing customer service levels. The author′s attention was confined to the manner by which the physical stock levels were reduced within the constraints of existing...

Branding has traditionally been viewed as an essential tool for marketers to establish an identity for their products. Even products among the commodity range make use of branding to establish a position for themselves in the market. Recent times, however, have seen the emergence of unbranded or...

In the world of Physical Distribution the identification of customer needs and the measurement of their relative importance has in the past been ignored. This paper investigates this theme and concludes it is of paramount importance for would‐be suppliers to obtain the view‐points of their...

Many companies in the UK have been forced to export to survive. A large number of such companies have failed due to their lack of understanding about the customer service requirements of overseas customers. Understanding the relative influence of each of the components of customer service, a...