with the discounters because they were getting a larger share of the con-
sumer business.
Carlton dealt directly with retail buyers, who as a group were extremely
conscious of service from suppliers. There was an attitude which Carlton’s
sales force sensed of ‘What have you done for us lately?’ This was obvi-
ously most pronounced amongst the discounters. They tended to operate
on weekly order cycles, and wanted to manage inventory on a just-in-time
basis.
The chain stores followed similar patterns but perhaps not so inten-
sively. Most were on a two-week order cycle and maintained adequate
stock levels in their own distribution centres as back-up to their stores.
They were beginning to enquire about direct ordering from their comput-
ers to Carlton’s computers, which Carlton was totally unprepared for.
British Telecom were the least aggressive, being the most traditional
member of the industry. They ordered in a variety of ways: sometimes
using standard order quantities, sometimes on monthly order cycles.
Carlton valued British Telecom as customers because they presented the
full product line, which the other customers did not do. Therefore they
could not be pushed aside.
The customer service survey
Carlton had commissioned the customer service survey to gain a better
understanding of customer service issues. No one in the organization had
looked at customer service in any detail before. Customer complaints had
usually come through the sales force which had passed them on to the sales
manager who in turn referred them to the distribution manager. These
complaints referred to a variety of different problems: delivery, credit, rep-
resentative call frequency. They were hard to pin down in a specific
pattern. The marketing director wanted several answers from this survey:
were there specific areas of complaint that stood out? How was Carlton’s
performance compared to competition and what areas should Carlton try
to improve?
The survey was conducted primarily through direct interviews with a
selected number of key customers amongst chain and discount store
buyers. In addition to general comments, questions were asked seeking
comparative ratings of Carlton versus major competitors on specific
aspects of service. The survey covered several specific aspects of customer
service: delivery time, delivery reliability, the quality and knowledge of
sales representatives, inventory availability, communications and order
procedures, advertising and promotion, and packaging. The consultants
were to report the results of the survey in a form that Carlton could use to
take action.
76 Relationship Marketing