Challenge
Hammonds were very aware that their customer service reviews on sites such as Trustpilot were not matching the high quality products they offer. Through COVID, materials were in short supply and delivery time was 20 weeks, meaning a half-year wait for some customers. The customer service team were not equipped to deal with irritated customers and this was causing their service order costs to increase (service order costs are when something goes wrong such as a broken product). Hammonds monitor those costs each month and not having good customer conversations meant they were ordering parts that they didn’t require, creating cost and waste that directly impacted their bottom line. This in turn meant that spend KPIs were not being met.
On reflection, Hammonds felt that they did not have an identity as an organisation and the lack of a formal onboarding process was why the customer service team were not equipped to excel.