A Road Map to Rising in the Consumer Satisfaction Index - Essay Example

A Road Map to Rising in the Consumer Satisfaction Index The American Satisfaction does not have a rating for petrochemicals. We may consider approaching the University of Michigan Business School to work on an index for us. I assume, for the immediate purpose of this note that our customers would appreciate our making it easier for them to take deliveries of their orders. This should help our eventual position in the index, given that we are in a business of commodity products. I recommend two immediate steps to improve customer satisfaction at our plant.

One is to establish a finished goods store, preferably at a location near the entrance, where customers can take delivery of all their orders. Such an outlet could have a day's inventory of sales for each product, which could be replenished on a daily basis, and have an additional provision for special real-time deliveries from relevant plants for any products that may be out of stock. The latter should be a most uncommon incident, since time series data of sales of mature products should help us predict daily sales by product with reasonable accuracy.

The second immediate step would be to introduce apron control for vehicle movement within the site, with radio communications with each driver. A person from stores could control all vehicular movement within the site, with priority for deliveries to the finished goods store which I have proposed. Each plant should receive its full bills of materials in time for every batch of production. The finished goods inventory and the provision of the bills of materials at plants can both be achieved by a standard enterprise resource plan (ERP) software.

We would need to train sales, stores and production personnel to operate the ERP, and maintenance responsibility could rest with the IT function. It is a fairly well established system that does not need top management time. However, it would help if top management would address all site employees on the need to help and establish the ERP quickly, so that we can improve customer satisfaction.Reference'American Customer Satisfaction Index', not dated, Ross School of Business, Michigan, retrieved February 2006 from