Effective lead time management is a critical factor in securing supply chain efficiency and cost control, since lead time represents the total time required for a product or material to move through the supply chain, as measured from the time of ordering to the time of delivery.

Lead time typically encompasses various supply chain stages, including order processing, manufacturing, transportation, and delivery. It can be scrutinised at a high level, by looking at overall supply chain lead time, or with more granularity by zooming in to elements such as supplier lead time and customer-order lead time.

The era of AI-first Customer Service is here, and it will lead to happier customers and more strategic customer service teams. It’s already clear that AI will reshape society, just as major technology breakthroughs have done in the past. Technology doesn’t go backwards. The car created shopping malls, suburbia, and McDonald’s. The internet created instant communication, real-time shared events, on-demand everything, for anyone, anywhere on earth. We’re not going back to riding horses, nor printing out photos to post to our family across the world. AI is as big an invention as the internet, and possibly as big a change as the industrial revolution. We’re only 18 months into a 10+ year cycle.

Almost everyone knows that retaining customers and turning them into loyal buyers is far more profitable for a business than constantly acquiring new clients. If you’ve managed to convert a mere viewer into a paying client, make sure to continue engaging with them. You can do it through various channels, but in this post, we will focus specifically on WhatsApp. We’ll explore why this messenger app is great for building long-lasting relationships with your clients and how to boost your WhatsApp retention rates.

Imagine leaving your angriest customers to spar with an automated script in your website’s chat window. Now picture your support team reading “Where is my order?” for the hundredth time and glancing at the clock, only to find six hours left in the workday. Who do you think is more frustrated? Luckily, you won’t have to answer that, because these are completely avoidable problems. Once you learn the important distinctions between chatbot software and live chat software, you’ll understand how to use them both more effectively and lower blood pressures across the board.

The start of a new year is the perfect time to give your help center the refresh it deserves. For many ecommerce brands, the help center is one of the most underused support tools—yet it’s also one of the most powerful. 88% of customers already search your website for some kind of knowledge base or FAQ. Customers expect fast answers, and a well-designed, updated help center can meet their needs while taking some weight off your support team. We’ll walk you through why refreshing matters and how to do it.

If there’s one thing that can make or break a business, it’s how long a customer gets left on read. When a customer reaches out for help or simply has a question, long wait times can quickly impact your business’s bottom line. 36% of consumers will share a negative support experience with friends and family, 31% won’t complete their purchase and 30% will buy from a competitor instead.

For support teams, first response time (FRT), also called first reply time, for each customer inquiry is usually that make-or-break moment. This metric can draw a direct line from the level of customer care someone receives to if they remain a loyal customer.

Exceeding customer expectations isn’t as easy as it used to be. High inbound message volumes and rising customer care standards have left support teams hustling to keep resolution times low. It’s officially time to call in the bots—customer service chatbots, that is.

Don’t panic—no robot can replace a diligent customer service professional. They can, however, quickly handle the frequently asked questions that eat at your team’s bandwidth and leave less time for more pressing support needs.

It’s not enough to resolve customer service issues quickly anymore. Businesses need to meet their customers with the personalized service they’re accustomed to from brands across industries and channels. Like how the barista at your neighborhood coffee shop asks you “the usual?” when you walk in the door.

But departmental silos, limited understanding of the value of social customer care and clunky tech stacks hinder businesses from delivering quality customer service. Leaders who don’t invest in solving some of these issues will be leaving money on the table and putting their customers’ loyalty up for grabs.