When I order croissants from Starbucks, the baristas would include packets of jam & butter.
One time, there was no butter. The barista said the shop was all out of butter; the commissary had also not delivered butter for a whole week.
I took the missing butter in stride and ate my croissant. But I was a little annoyed.
Starbucks could care less about me being annoyed especially as I continued to buy and partake their food & coffee. I also doubt they would care if I stopped patronising their coffee shops and went somewhere else. I’m only one customer after all. And what’s one missing butter anyway if customers continue to clamour for Starbucks’ best-selling beverages and desserts?
Supply chain gurus preach about perfect orders. Perfect orders happen when an enterprise serves orders completely within agreed or targeted time frames without deviations or errors in product quality, service terms and delivery documentation.
Incomplete orders are an opposite of perfect orders. They happen when customers do not receive all of what they expected from their orders. Missing items, undelivered products, and service agreements not 100% complied with are examples.
Therefore, when an enterprise like Starbucks doesn’t accompany a seemingly trivial item like butter with an order of croissant, it is serving an incomplete order to a customer.
Some executives, however, view incomplete orders as nothing to worry about. If customers continue to buy products even though there were missing items (e.g., butter not included with the croissant) with the served orders, executives would feel no urgency to do something about it.
Incomplete orders, if unchecked, however, will backfire on businesses. The following cases are true-to-life consequences of incomplete orders:
- Customers stopped buying from a steel products manufacturer after they discovered that the manufacturer didn’t completely polish the insides of the pipes they purchased. The manufacturer argued that polishing the insides of their pipes was not included in the products’ specifications. Customers disagreed, saying that polishing the outside of pipes and not doing so for the inside was inconsistent in assuring product quality. In short, it was common sense to polish the inside and outside of pipes. Not doing so made deliveries of the customers’ orders incomplete.
- Customers complained that an automobile dealership where they bought their new cars from was turning them away when they brought their vehicles for maintenance. The new cars came with warranties for free replacement parts for three (3) months after purchase. But because parts were unavailable, the dealership was unable to service customers’ cars. The customers considered the purchase of their cars as incomplete given the dealership’s failure to honour the warranties. Customers warned new car shoppers not to buy from the dealership.
Ensuring enough stock of items (e.g., butter, spare parts) via common-sense inventory management is the straightforward answer to avoiding incomplete orders. This is especially true if the items on inventory are not too expensive.
Experience had shown, however, that incomplete orders often become serious when there is an absence of policy in orders management and customer service. A very significant step is for executives to place more attention to incomplete orders and plan measures to avoid them.
Imagine if the steel manufacturer in the example above set the standard that pipes must be polished inside and out, and if the manufacturer’s executives invested in the capabilities to ensure products met the specifications of customers.
Imagine too if the automobile dealership stocked up on parts so that it could service all its customers’ new cars as it guaranteed.
And imagine if Starbucks made sure there would always be butter. I, as one customer, would not only be less annoyed but others won’t be too. Business might not grow immediately as a result, but Starbucks would likely experience my and other customers’ continued patronage.
Problems just don’t begin to be solved via identification and definition. They start to be addressed when leaders recognise them as potentials for solutions which, although maybe not right away, would bring positive, if not breakthrough, impacts to their businesses.
