EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
B2B | INDUSTRY: MANUFACTURING
A manufacturing organization specializing in industrial pumps and spare parts faced declining customer satisfaction driven by delayed quote turnaround times, decreasing on-time service delivery, and claims-processing inefficiencies. Customer satisfaction scores had dropped to a rating of 2, and leadership established a goal to improve the score by one full point within 6 months, on time for the next customer survey.
Working cross-functionally between Sales Operations and Product Engineering, the project focused on diagnosing workflow bottlenecks, improving visibility across the quote lifecycle, and implementing operational process improvements. Through root cause analysis, workflow redesign, vendor coordination, and process governance, quote turnaround times were reduced from more than three weeks to five days. The initiative directly contributed to increasing customer satisfaction scores the following quarter.
BUSINESS CHALLENGES
Customer survey feedback revealed several operational pain points impacting client satisfaction, including:
- Delays in quote turnaround times
- Friction within the claims process
- Delivery timing issues
- Lack of visibility into quote status and workflow ownership
The organization served industries where industrial pumps were critical to operations, including healthcare facilities, meat processing plants, and other operationally sensitive environments. Delays in service or spare part procurement created operational risks for customers.
OBJECTIVES
- Improve customer satisfaction score from 3 to 4 within one quarter
- Reduce quote turnaround times to 2 weeks
- Increase visibility into quote workflow and ownership
- Reduce operational bottlenecks between Sales Operations, Product Engineering, and suppliers
- Standardize and streamline quote routing processes
KEY CONTRIBUTIONS
SONJI STEWART
iam@sonjistewart.com
Process Improvement, PROCESS ADOPTION, Workflow Optimization, Customer Experience Improvement, KPI & Performance Management, Change Management, Root Cause Analysis
- Collaborated with the Product Engineering Supervisor to lead the problem solving intiative
- Led the 5 Whys workshop with my Sales Team and the Product Engineering Team to synthesize feedback and determine action items
- Drew out the current process flow and analyzed it with the team and determined bottlenecks, work loops, wasteful work and motions and inefficiencies
- Designed an improved process and documented training and documentation
- Designed the workflow process and swimlanes in Trello to increase visibility of all quotes in the system and where they stood
- Trained sales teams on new routing procedures and process accountability
- Created weekly operational reporting dashboards
RESULTS & IMPACT
TBD
Trello
- TBD