Who Last Touches a Customer’s Goods?

Editor’s Note: Norman Katz, president of supply chain consultancy Katzscan Inc., writes a monthly column for Supply Chain Management Review. Katz’s column appears on the third Monday of each month.

It was a little over 20 years ago at a dinner meeting of supply chain professionals and related service industries that the speaker asked the audience a question which has resonated with me ever since. During his presentation, the speaker asked the room of approximately 125 attendees the following: “Who is the last person to touch a customer’s goods?”

Well, the room fell silent as we all had blank stares and looked at each other for answers.

Given that this was a group of supply chain people, I guess it was only natural that, after a minute or so, someone finally spoke up and said “picker or packer” meaning the person in the warehouse who picked or packed the items to fulfill an order.

The speaker acknowledged that this was a good response.

Ah … we now had some direction for an answer.

Someone else – given that this was a dinner meeting and the servers were milling about – chimed in and said “waiter or waitress” because our servers were finished delivering full plates and clearing the empty ones. The speaker said that too was a good answer, and then someone else offered “bartender or barmaid.” 

At some point – I’m not usually a very shy guy – I piped up and said “cashier,” an answer the speaker also acknowledged as being good. Score one for me!

After another minute or two, the speaker thanked the audience for their answers and participation, but he stated that none of the answers were the ones that he was looking for. The audience was curious: who was the last person to touch a customer’s goods? The answer to the question, the speaker stated, was the lowest paid.

The room fell silent again.

As the speaker noted, we had all provided job roles that had two things in common: yes, each of these job roles are involved in touching the customer’s goods last. The other thing they had in common was that they were all the lowest paid jobs.

I have never forgotten that lesson.

Lowest paid, highest expectations

Not only are the lowest paid the last to typically touch a customer’s goods, but the expectation of performance is usually at 100%. It seems that the lower the pay, the higher the performance expectation. And the lowest paid are often the first to be considered the most easily expendable and replaceable.

I’ve spent time with the “lowest paid,” such as sales order entry professionals and warehouse pickers and packers: these people have organizational skills unique to their job roles. And I’ve been surprised and impressed numerous times at how cleverly people in these job roles have worked around software system limitations to get their jobs done without breaking the system’s rules. But rarely are they really recognized for their smarts or hard work.

And in today’s e-commerce economy, we can include delivery drivers with the “lowest paid” professional category.

As companies replace workers with robots, and humans with artificial intelligence chatterboxes, consider whether that’s the right last touch you want for your company’s product or service, because that may very well be how the customer remembers your company, your brand, your image.

There is nothing wrong with automation, heck, there is everything right about it. Automation absolutely has its place in the supply chain to meet certain demands of today and the expectations of tomorrow. Technology is a tool to get a job done, and how that tool is wielded can make all the difference to your customer. If you think you’re frustrated that last time you tried to navigate the numbers of an automated telephone system menu, just wait until you’ve tried arguing with an AI chatbot, and then imagine that you are your company’s customer.  

People still matter, a lot, to make supply chains function. Train them, educate them, equip them, support them, and by gosh, pay them for what they are really worth, because your executive salary realistically depends upon them. In working cooperatively (separated from each other) or collaboratively (side by-side) together, people and technology are a winning pair. People bring subjectivity that objective technologies cannot contribute … yet, if ever. In times of crisis and exceptional events, who are you going to rely on to pull out all the stops and save the day? My answer: the people.

About the author:

Norman Katz is president of Katzscan Inc. a supply chain technology and operations consultancy that specializes in vendor compliance, ERP, EDI, and barcode applications. Norman is the author of “Detecting and Reducing Supply Chain Fraud” (Gower/Routledge, 2012), “Successful Supply Chain Vendor Compliance” (Gower/Routledge, 2016), and “Attack, Parry, Riposte: A Fencer’s Guide To Better Business Execution” (Austin Macauley, 2020). Norman is a U.S. national and international speaker and article writer, and a foil and saber fencer and fencing instructor.

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