Can you Listen?

October 1, 2010
3:56 am

Customer-centric supply chains have been the dream. Technologies are making it more feasible, but can you listen?_____________________________________________________________________________________________
In most companies, the group named customer service is mis-named. While the department is named “customer service” , it really is a group of order takers. Next week at Altitmeter Group’s first conference, The Rise of Social Commerce, I will be presenting on how social technologies have evolved to driven enlightened engagement. …to put true Service into customer response. …to accelerate innvoation. Consider these two stories from my research for the event:

If only I had the Clout of Dooce

For leaders (Dell, REI, Newell Rubbermaid), Twitter can enable a customer service transformation. Customers WANT to be heard. Twitter is an enabler. The struggle is helping the organization to Listen. Sometimes it takes a baseball bat. The ability to listen happens only through failure.
Meet Dooce. When Heather Armstrong (@dooce)’s Whirlpool washing machine broke down, she called the Maytag repair man. When her calls to the customer service, and the subsequent visit by the repairman did not resolve the problem, she turned to twitter. Dooce advised her legion of over a million twitter followers to not buy Maytag. Her first tweet : “DO NOT EVER BUY A MAYTAG”, was followed in three minutes by a tweet of “ I repeat: OUR MAYTAG EXPERIENCE HAS BEEN A NIGHTMARE”, was followed by “Have I mentioned what a nightmare our experience was with Maytag?” arrived into the inbox of the newly formed Whirlpool’s customer service team It was the team’s 12^th tweet. The incident made national news.
Dooce had an impact. Today, the Whirlpool customer service team has been transformed to listen to the customer. They meet weekly cross functionally – marketing, customer service, field service and product management—to listen the voice of the customer from Twitter and Facebook. Unlike @Dooce, I had a great response from Whirlpool customer service. I had bought a Kitchen Aid mixer that did not have an instruction manual. I tweeted for help, and had a great response within an hour. This experience was far different than the one that I experienced with Delta on a delayed flight out of Atlanta on my birthday. Here is an excerpt from the tweet stream:
@Delta. You are killing me. Delta flight 9869 is delayed. Moved gates in ATL 3X. I will arrive home 7 hours late and miss my birthday party. #travel
@lcecere. Your flight is not the responsibility of Delta. It is a code-share partner. Take up your issue with them.
Imagine how I felt, siting at C-gates on what was supposed to be my birthday party. If only I was @Dooce with over a million followers, maybe I would have gotten a more positive response. Unfortunately, for 80% of the companies I interviewed, this is the case. They are not ready for Dooce. Most are unaware that danger lurks ahead. They are unaware that they can now have meaningful consumer dialogue.

Don’t Wash Your Vegetables

In the research, 20% of companies are using twitter as a listening post for customer sentiment in new product launch. Consider the case of Newell Rubbermaid’s Product Saver launch presented at South by Southwest by Social Pioneer, Bert Demars:

In short, consumers were using the product without reading the instructions, and not receiving the desired results. Without watching the Facebook feedback and having the benefit of syndicated reviews from Bazzarvoice, Newell would have never known. Because Newell could listen, they were able to reverse the negative consumer sentiment and save the new product launch. The answer was simple, “Don’t wash your vegetables”.
The connection of twitter stream, syndicated review feedback, and facebook dialogue to R&D happens the most often in consumer durables, high tech and electronics and the largest Consumer Packaged Goods companies (CPG companies). The use of social technologies as listening posts gives us the ability to listen, but few are up to the task.
What do you think? Have you seen some great case studies in this area? Are you up to the task? Customer-centric supply chains are today’s new reality.

The Myth of End-to-End Planning

July 31, 2026 9:14 pm

Supply chain planning, supply management, supply chain execution, network design, and transportation/logistics management operate in silos. Not much has changed over four decades. The connections flow back through transactional systems: order-to-cash and procure-to-pay. There is a myth that companies can buy an end-to-end supply chain management solution. This is largely a myth. Here we explain.

Lead Time: A Broken Gossamer

July 16, 2026 6:38 pm

If you are struggling with supply chain planning, dancing in the light of shiny objects, and scratching your head, please read on. My goal is to help you.

Please do not AI Stupid. What do I mean? AI Stupid is putting agents and agentics on top of existing architectures believing that making them faster and hands free add value. To me, this is fools play.

I love AI. I am excited about new technologies. To this end, I want to shine a light on how new technologies can help address the black holes and inconsistencies in today’s supply chain, which largely stem from the limitations of the first generation of supply chain planning and execution technologies. In this blog, I give you three places to start.

Do You Need a Supply Chain Coach?

July 9, 2026 5:27 pm

Supply chain is where the rubber hits the road. For a public company, over 40% of market capitalization is tied to the trade-offs between growth, operating margin, inventory management, and Return on Capital Employed.

The road for supply chain improvement is fraught with issues. Here we share some and offer some advice.

Is your Supply Chain AI Ready?

June 11, 2026 2:39 pm

A simple quiz to assess an organization’s AI readiness.

The pace of change is fast and furious. Every day, technology advances faster than we can digest. A great challenge to have.

Determining whether a supply chain is “AI-ready” is less about technology and more about the gray matter between the ears of supply chain leaders. Leadership, alignment, and clarity of goals matter.

Too few companies are clear on the definition of supply chain excellence. Measuring and rewarding functional metrics reduces the firm’s value. Putting agentics on top of today’s processes can make bad practices run faster, reducing value.

The toughest job for the supply chain leader is challenging existing supply chain paradigms that were defined by the limitations of decades of supply chain technologies. As the curtain lifts on the potential of new forms of technology, process redefinition is our opportunity, but only if we are clear on what drives value. (Here, I link to the Supply Chains to Admire reports to help you define value. The next report will be published on June 23rd, along with my Dynamic Benchmarking Product, to help you define value in the face of your AI readiness. More information about the launch is at the bottom of this blog.)

Case Study: A Scrappy Demand Management Approach

June 9, 2026 5:37 pm

This study of Franklin Sports shines a light on the work that needs to be done at the sales account level to challenge a retail forecast, and also highlights the importance of a new technique for a forecast engine — reinforcement learning.

Artificial intelligence comes in many forms — large language models, generative AI, machine learning, unstructured text mining, deep learning, neural networks, reinforcement learning, agents, and agentics. While the industry is wigging out about agentics, I think reinforcement learning is a great step forward in the journey of Artificial Intelligence.

Can We Side-Step the AI Spin Cycle?

June 7, 2026 3:44 pm

When it comes to combining tech, 1+1+1 should equal more than 1. The impact should be exponential. Unfortunately, today, the answer is 0.

What do I mean? Let me explain.

I find that the supply chain technology market moves slowly along traditional technology lines. Conferences are usually focused on the use of technology, not on redefining work. This bothers me. I want it to bother you as well.

Here I share some insights to drive change.

Supply Chain Shaman