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 Surviving seasonal peaks
By: By Jeff Morris
The holiday order crush—assuming you had one last year—may seem like a long time ago. But holiday 2008 is right around the corner, and seasonal peaks can be destructive to your distribution center without the right survival strategies, says operations expert Sam Flanders....
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Forecasting Workloads for Special Events
By: By Bob Webb
Does your company’s call volume fluctuate according to seasonal buying, catalog drops, or other special events? If you’re like most catalogers, the answer is yes. And that means your workforce management software needs forecasting capabilities if you aim to have the right number of agents in their chairs at the right times....
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System Helps Art of Shaving Manage Growth
By: By Jim Tierney
While many retailers reported soft sales last year, multichannel merchant The Art of Shaving grew a record-breaking 62% in 2007. The marketer of upscale men’s shaving products credits its success in part to its software, NetSuite’s One System Architecture, which helped it sell via multiple sales channels, including retail, wholesale, and the Internet....
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Customer Surveys, Step by Step
By: By Penny Reynolds
A systematic surveying process will help you better understand customer perceptions of your contact center’s performance. The five basic steps in performing customer surveys are: project planning; instrument development; survey administration; data analysis; and reporting and action. Let’s take a closer look at each step....
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A Look at International Distribution
By: By Rob Martinez
As U.S. markets continue to expand abroad due to increased overseas demand for American products, globalization, and other economic forces, operations managers are being thrust into the strange new world of international distribution....
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Ergonomics and Employee Satisfaction
By: By Kathryn E. Jackson
In most contact centers, it is far more cost-effective for employers to retain a good agent than to recruit a replacement. Therefore, keeping employee satisfaction and morale at a good level is a common business goal. ...
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Surveying Call Center Success
By: By Penny Reynolds
The long-term success of any organization, and particularly a service organization such as a call center, depends upon continuous improvement. Most call centers have numerous measures of individual, team, and overall call center performance. ...
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Newgistics Acquires Cornerstone Shipping Services
Returns-management system provider Newgistics on Feb. 11 acquired Milan, IL-based small-package shipping software supplier Cornerstone Shipping Services. The combined company will be known as Newgistics....
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Warehouse KPIs: Who’s In Your “Fav Five?”
By: By Rene Jones
As a distribution professional, you have several key performance indicators you are always aware of. The operations and fulfillment field includes many KPIs--quantifiable measurements that reflect the success factors of an organization.
But which warehouse KPIs are in your “Fav Five?” Here are mine, in descending order.
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The Lowdown on Bottom-Line Ergonomics
By: By Kathryn E. Jackson
At almost every seminar I teach or attend I get asked, “How can I justify investing in the agents’ work space?” When I was managing contact centers, this was a very “iffy” situation. But the field of ergonomics has since blossomed, and the return on investment has been significantly substantiated....
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Preparing for Inevitable Supply Chain Disruptions
By: By Jose Li
Dozens if not hundreds of possible threats to your supply chain that could significantly disrupt the flow of your merchandise so it is NOT at the right place at the right time--when your customer is ready to buy. ...
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Putting a Cap on Calls Resolution
By: By Timothy J. Holody
You know why you should strive for first-call resolution, and if you read our last article (http://multichannelmerchant.com/opsandfulfillment/advisor/first_call_0129/index.html), you know how to do it. This week we’ll focus on limiting the number of calls to or from a customer it will take to resolve any problem or issue....
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8 Things An ELS Vendor Will Never Tell You
By: By Michael Droske
A daily battle goes on in distribution centers and manufacturing plants all across the country between unmotivated workers and the supervisors that lead them. The supervisor wants them to work harder but typically isn’t sure how to make that happen. ...
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In Praise of 3PLs
By: By Ron Cain
No doubt about it, 2008 will be a challenging year for business. With the Fed forecasting inflation rising between 1.7% and 1.9% in 2008 while GDP grows at a sluggish 1.8-2.5%, companies will need to be tightening their belts and looking for ways to make a profit anyway they can. ...
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Miles Kimball Meets Seasonal Fulfillment Challenges
For gift catalogers, the holiday season is the busiest time of the year in the distribution center. We decided to check in with some mailers to see how their operations fared for the final months of 2007. Tim Little, vice president of operations for Oshkosh, WI-based gifts and housewares merchant Miles Kimball spoke with MULTICHANNEL MERCHANT’s senior writer Jim Tierney....
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Liquidation Tactics for the Holiday Hangover
By: By Curt Barry
Many retailers fell well short of holiday sales plans that were fairly conservative to begin with. What does that mean? Challenges from 2007 are extending into this year during the final phase of the product life cycle: markdown and liquidation of unsold merchandise....
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The First Call Should Do it All
By: By Timothy J. Holody
“Just put me through to someone who can solve my problem!” I was done--totally fed up with the lack of customer service I was receiving. ...
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Tale of Two Facilities , Part Two
By: By Sandy Stephens
Last week we discussed the comparison of two distribution centers of the same corporation who followed the same approach to process improvement and labor management, but with very different results. ...
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Social Media and Customer Care Managers, Part 1
By: By Linda Schellenger
The critical news for the customer care industry is that word-of-mouth marketing has found a brighter beam on the radar screens of marketing professionals in recent years with the growth of new and social media. ...
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Will DHL Stay the Course in the U.S.?
By: By Melissa Dowling
With at least two major investment banks pushing for Deutsche Post to pull DHL out of North America, multichannel merchants may be wondering about the fate of DHL Express US....
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Health Issues Plague Offshore Call-center Staff
American consumers--and Europeans for that matter—often get testy when they find their calls have been transferred to a contact center based in India. And they tend to unleash their fury and frustration on the call agents, which, according to a recent story in the Washington Post, has resulted in a rash of stress-induced ailments among India-based phone reps....
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An Ops Executive’s Green Thoughts
By: By Randall Brough
Without doubt, the color green is en vogue again, this time on a global scale and as individuals and companies alike, we fear being labeled as not part of the movement. ...
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Managing Improvement: A Tale of Two Facilities
By: By Sandy Stephens
Johnson Stephens Consulting was engaged to assist the development of a labor management system for a multibillion-dollar corporation with two distribution centers. ...
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