The Client:
One of the nation's largest utility companies.
The Opportunity:
Provide outsource fulfillment services for a consumer-direct
offering of energy-saving devices for the home. (Part of
a commission by the PUC to administer Demand Side Management
Programs to alleviate load requirements on current power
plants.)
The Challenge:
While the utility company's offering of compact fluorescent
light bulbs at well below market rates had brisk sales (200,000
units sold in the first year). The fulfillment outsource
they had initially chosen was causing many PUC complaints
and delivering thousands of damaged products, many broken
through UPS, at rates of over 15%.
The Solution:
NFS awarded the program when it is re-bid, designs a proprietary
key to account number processing that records all purchasers
against their actual utility account number. NFS strengthens
customer service by an event-driven customer care system
that covers all complaints. NFS' call center, staffed by
both English and Spanish-speaking operators, meets PUC requirements
for multi-lingual ordering. NFS reworks the packaging design,
creating new shipping containers that not only protect the
product better, but are 100% recyclable.
The Result:
The best customer service system in a bullet-proof platform
that distributes more than 280,000 units without incident.
The newly designed boxes reduce the breakage rate from 15%
to .005%, saving the utility company more than $100,000.
Case Study
The Client:
A major national department store.
The Opportunity:
Help develop efficient five and six-step continuity club
programs for the store's home shipping network.
The Challenge:
The need to provide daily updates of all transactions to:
1. a sophisticated database managed by an independent national
database firm: and 2. The main database of the department
store itself.
The Solution:
Within a four-month window, National Fulfillment Services
(NFS) begins a system integration with the store's IS department,
the independent database vendor, and implements, with full
testing, the continuity programs well in advance of the first
responses.
The Result:
Through the efforts of the three-way partnership, response
rates of over 20% are achieved and cancellation/return rates
are reduced to below 5%.
