Supply chains are built on customer service, and even weak economic conditions won’t lower customers’ high expectations when it comes to the services they pay for.

If anything, during rocky economic times, exceeding customer expectations becomes the most crucial thing to maintain.

The freight contraction has impacted businesses in all corners of the supply chain, but low freight rates have drastically driven down margins for transportation providers. Businesses that began when freight volumes hit their stride two years ago are feeling the cuts deeply now.

In such an environment, for supply chain businesses, creating efficiencies that can drive down costs and enhance long-term relationships is more urgent — but more difficult — than ever.

Businesses have to really make sure that they are set up to provide high levels of customer care, build strong relationships and empower their people to do their jobs with a high level of precision. 

This can be accomplished by integrating the right back-office support, setting clear and measurable KPIs to identify what some gaps in process or technology could be, and getting the right tech in place to drive scalable efficiency.

All too often, however, companies suffer from misalignment in three key areas that prevent them from attaining the workforce optimization required for sustained success. Those areas are people, processes and technology. 

To demonstrate this, think about how common it is for companies to implement technology solutions only for them to fall short. In a lot of circumstances, it’s because leadership tries to solve the wrong problems. 

Attempting to bandage inefficiencies through technology solutions, without thoroughly investigating processes that led to the root problem, wastes time and drains valuable resources — both all too important to lose in a deflated market.

Workforce analytics is tied to company, team and individual performance, and it allows businesses to see areas where inefficiencies exist. This makes it possible to ask the right questions in order to see the gaps in processes, technology or training that need to be addressed.

As experts in workforce optimization, Lean Solutions Group’s workforce analytics solutions allow businesses to know if what they’re doing is effective to drive greater experience and efficiency so that they benefit from lower costs and lasting relationships.

“If you don’t have a way to measure the impact of individual and team performance at all, and you can’t tie that to customer satisfaction or business results, you’ll have a hard time delivering delight, speed and ease to your customers,” said Ryan Mann, marketing director at Lean.

Lean helps companies measure their workforce with the correct key performance indicators. This data provides organizations with valuable awareness for workforce planning, such as strategic growth plans, operational changes, technology implementation, succession planning, promotions and improvement plans.

With nearly 10,000 employees in operational, technology and customer support roles, and over 550 logistics customers served, Lean has learned a thing or two about high-performing teams in logistics.

Providing transportation businesses with one-time or periodic data-driven and educated support, Lean allows businesses to make educated business decisions. It supports businesses with KPI development and maintenance, time studies, red flag reports, benchmarks and insight reports.

Lean matches businesses with the right talent, sets those employees up for success through best practices and standard operating procedures, and works with you to make sure the right tools are in place.

To learn more about Lean Solutions Group, click here.