Improving Productivity and Service in Depot Businesses

Chapter 6 Customer Service

DOI: 10.4324/9781003323822-6

Introduction

The single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that results exist only on the outside. The result of the business is a satisfied customer. The result of a hospital is a healed patient. Inside an enterprise there are only costs.¹

Drucker’s words bring into focus the fundamental point that a business exists because of its customers and the “reason for being” is the service provided for the customer. Without the customer there is no business. In a route-based depot business, the reason for being is the service and or product being installed, delivered to, or collected from the customer, or customer’s customer location. The business depot infrastructure, ...