Book Reviews
ISA Guide to Measuring Customer Satisfaction
How do you know if you are achieving more as
a company? What signs indicate that you may
be having problems? How do you know if you
are meeting your customers’ needs?
There are many ways to determine the answers
to these questions. However, the most
effective strategy is to turn to your customers
for advice. Customer feedback can be
invaluable in determining the direction you need
to take. Establishing a standard process is the
key to measuring customer satisfaction.
Surveying customers on satisfaction is also an
excellent tool to help you identify areas for
improvement, as well as provide insight into
which areas you should focus your resources.
Customer satisfaction surveys are a critical
input into your company’s continuous
improvement initiatives.
Click here to download the document.
Profit Myths in Wholesale Distribution: The Truth About Sales, Margins, Inventory, and Expenses
by Dr. Al Bates, Profit Planning Group
This book has one overall goal in mind: Change the way your members think about their businesses.
Some of the changes in mind-set the book talks about include:
- Replacing GMROI as a measurement tool because it almost always leads to incorrect decisions about inventory.
- Appreciating that bad debts may not always be bad.
Understanding that lowering inventory is frequently a bad idea.
- Accepting the fact that sales growth can be too fast as well as too slow.
- Identifying why most sales force commission plans don’t work the way they are supposed to.
Bates gets to the heart of the matter in the premise of his book: Both decision quality and decision consistency are influenced by some very bad information. He points out that the problem is exacerbated by the fact that the bad information sure looks good on the surface. He replaces conventional wisdom with a combination of sophisticated analysis and empirical information.
For more information, or to purchase this book, click here.
