WTN Services Winery Distribution & Fulfillment Tips- Constituencies & Metrics…
Winery and wine retail fulfillment companies with a long-term vision of sustainable practices servicing the wine industry must strive to pursue the highest level of client service to attract or retain clients.
There are a very limited number of winery fulfillment companies that are scalable for direct to consumer growth anticipated in the next few years. Growth is fueled in part by a new awareness by wine direct consumers of new media-Web 2.0, blogging & Net TV.
There are even fewer winery fulfillment companies that are selective in their partnerships, understand the changes and have the financial strength to invest in the future in preparation of the market changes ahead. WTN Services is the one that meets all of the above conditions while focused on best in class client service and support.
The pursuit of “best in class” client services requires that the anticipation of customer
needs and expectations. The key to sustainable service is to then match those needs and expectations with a product and service offering that is timely today and anticipates, plans and invests for those needs tomorrow.
WTN Services is continuing in that direction. Within the last two years our clients have seen us successfully launch an east coast fulfillment center. We now lead the industry as the only winery fulfillment company with a proven track record of bi-coastal services. We lead not only in the number of packages we fulfill out of our two locations but in our ability to execute with excellence. This offering now has two years of experience and is being expanded.
Additional enhancements in technology, consumer research, training, education and staff development further affirm WTN Services lead in innovation for the future while recognizing our pioneering past.
In the case of winery and wine retail fulfillment, the definition and the value of “best in class service” is great and at times under recognized. The value is very real and has a very large potential to reduce a clients costs and increase the clients ability to achieve their goals. It is fulfillment, done well with account management that understands your goals and abilities in planning, that reduces the cost of storage, fulfillment and shipping while making certain that the end consumers are pleased with the execution and quality of the final delivered product.
For winery and wine retail fulfillment to have its greatest impact on cost reduction and goals achievement, superior client service and support must be realized for three distinct constituencies…
- The end users or the wine drinking consumer;
- Inventory managers, product, marketing or club managers, or those with the overall responsibility for day-to-day contact with the fulfillment provider and
- The corporate goals toward which they are all working.
There are many ways these constituency’s priorities overlap; however, there can be great differences in priorities…
For example, the consumer may simply want the reship or the return processed and redelivered within a day of his or her request, while an inventory manager is concerned with accurately anticipating and monitoring product inventory needs to avoid running out and the panic of “RUSH” pickups and deliveries. All the while, the corporate goal of keeping costs down and increasing sales must be served.
For world-class client services to be achieved in fulfillment, the needs and wants of each of these constituencies must be balanced, coordinated, managed, and met. For this daunting challenge to be accomplished, a fulfillment provider must have tremendous experience, and scale in financial resouces to invest in technological systems and people systems.
There are five main areas that make up the definition of “best in class”client service
within the winery fulfillment industry:
- Results that are excellent and consistent, on a routine basis especially related to continuity programs, daily order consistency and ecommerce fulfillment stadards (club, planning and execution is key);
- User-friendliness that builds trust and use (systems and account team);
- Proactivity in communication and anticipating ways to reduce costs and improve operational excellence and margin improvement for the client, (account planning and partnered management)
- Innovation that adds value over the long haul, (bi-coastal inventory management, carrier efficiency, packaging, etc);
- Achievement and reporting of mutually agreed-to performance indicators.
If one is to determine the level of customer service of a fulfillment provider, detailed milestones — complete with metrics of their achievement — must be agreed upon, defined and assessed. In our next posting we will review metrics that should be monitored and expected of a premuim provider.
For further information or questions visit www.wtnservices.com or your WTN account manager.