Executive Summary
B2B | INDUSTRY: MANUFACTURING
A manufacturing firm specializing in industrial pumps and spare parts faced declining customer satisfaction driven by delayed quote turnaround times (QRT) for custom pump orders. CSAT scores on the last customer survey had dropped from 4.1 to 2.8. The General Manager set a goal to improve the quote response score by one full point within 6 months, on time for the next customer survey.
Business Challenges
Inside Sales (my team) and Product Engineering co-owned the QRT KPI, and both teams had new supervisors. Although the survey revealed other operational pain points, the quote response process was primarily in the firm’s control. Custom pump orders were massive profit drivers. If a single custom order fit a customer’s use case – especially an OEM client – order volume could scale. OEM industrial pumps were critical to healthcare facilities, meat processing plants, and other operationally sensitive environments. Delays in responses to OEMs in their supply chains created operational risks for them and their end customers.
- Quote responses averaged 3+ weeks
- Customers escalated quote response delays to the General Manager weekly
- We relied on external vendors for some parts for quote orders and sometimes vendor response times for special components pricing and lead time was 1 week+
Objectives
- Improve customer satisfaction score from 3 to 4 within one quarter
- Reduce quote turnaround times to 2 weeks
- Increase visibility into the number of quotes in the workflow and ownership at any given time
- Reduce operational bottlenecks between Sales Operations, Product Engineering, and suppliers
My Key Contributions
SONJI STEWART
iam@sonjistewart.com
Root Cause Analysis, TRAINING & PROCESS DOCUMENTATION, PROCESS ADOPTION, Workflow Optimization, Customer Experience, KPI Management
- Collaborated in a cross-functional effort between Inside Sales and Engineering to do a root cause analysis workshop
- Visualized the existing quote workflow and led a 5 Whys workshop with Sales and all Product Engineers
- Identified process gaps and synthesized findings into an action plan
- Redesigned the quote response workflow, addressing problem points and identifying areas for parallel task execution
- Created a Trello kanban board to remove requests from email and make quote tracking more visible.
- Documented new quote procedures and accountability standards. Trained Sales & Engineering teams
- Created a Trello reporting dashboard to monitor quote workflows and find opportunities for continuous improvement
- Manufacturing Engineering identified in-stock alternatives for custom spare parts to reduce vendor quote delays and lead times.
RESULTS & IMPACT
Reduced quote turnaround to an average 7 days. CSAT score for QRT on the next survey increased by 1.3 points to 4.1 .
Systems & Platforms
Trello
- The Sales and Engineering teams quickly adopted the new process and appreciated the added visibility and accountability provided by timestamp tracking on assigned Trello cards.
- By improving how quotes involving external vendors were managed, average quote response times decreased from more than three weeks to five days.
- Manufacturing Engineering became more engaged in the custom order process and contributed alternative solutions using in-stock spare parts. This reduced lead times and improved profit margins.
- Based on our success, the General Manager assigned our teams to partner with the Quality Assurance Team to improve customer claims response times.