What does this mean for fulfilment solutions? A solution that worked near perfectly a few months or years ago could be woefully inadequate in the context of present realities. If you do not make appropriate changes to your fulfilment technology and infrastructure, the declining efficiency will gradually eat away at your profit. 

It is essential that business owners and managers know the early warning signs of falling fulfilment efficiency so they can upgrade their fulfilment solution in good time. Here’s a look at some of the more important indicators of waning fulfilment success.

1. Growing Error Rate

Trends in error rates are an important indicator of how well your fulfilment process is doing. Multiple error indicators could show how much and how often your fulfilment is falling below expectations. 

For example, are warehouse mis-picks increasing? Each mis-pick increases the cost of correctly fulfilling the original order. You pay at least twice the shipping cost (that is, for product return and the subsequent replacement). Further, some sensitive products have a short expiry window and may not be resalable once returned. Growing fulfilment error rates could be the trigger for an upgrade.

2. Increasing Delivery Times

Thanks to the rapid delivery standards set by eCommerce giants such as Amazon, businesses today operate in a cut-throat environment where customers are accustomed to fast fulfilment. Delivery times are a key driver of customer satisfaction. Late deliveries and long waits do not encourage repeat orders nor augur well for your business’ prospects. 

You probably want to investigate what fulfilment bottlenecks could be the cause. Sometimes, all you may need to do is tweak a procedure or two to get things back on track. At other times, however, any such changes won’t improve the situation. In that case, the delays may be originating from a more deep-seated issue – your fulfilment solution.

3. Difficulty Integrating New Technology

Every so often, a new technology comes around that introduces features and capabilities that are a substantial departure from what already exists. While the technology itself may be just what your fulfilment process needs, it may not be compatible with your existing fulfilment solution. 

For example, think about how smartphones and wearable devices today can scan barcodes and feed this data back to your inventory systems. For this to happen though, your inventory systems and supply chain infrastructure have to be pre-built ready for integration, or easy to modify for compatibility. If it isn’t, you will have difficulty taking advantage of emerging technologies and lose your competitive edge in the marketplace. In this case, an upgrade would be necessary. 

4. No Improvement from Hiring More Staff

Not every problem is solved by hiring more staff. Employees are after all one of your business’ biggest recurrent costs. Still, there is a significant amount of business hurdles that can be contained or resolved by simply getting more hands on deck. The key principle here is proportionality. Let me explain.

If you had a limitless budget to expand your workforce, you could hire a large number of people to take care of the rising demand. Far from such ideal scenarios, however, such costs would quickly wipe out any business’ profits. Is the rising order demand contained by a proportional or lower increase in staffing? 

In order to hire more workers for your fulfilment workflow, you should already have a fulfilment solution that drives optimal results. If your fulfilment solution is broken, you are unlikely to stay on top of increasing customer orders even when you proportionally increase your employees. 

5. Falling Customer Satisfaction Ratings

The world’s largest businesses set aside substantial budgets to regularly run customer satisfaction surveys. And for good reason. There is arguably no better indicator of how well your business is perceived than actual feedback from buyers of your products. 

A decline in customer satisfaction ratings could be caused by numerous factors – everything from low-quality packaging to poor customer support. To determine if the complaints can be traced back to a common cause, take a step back, investigate root causes and check for any correlation. There is a possibility that the escalation in customer complaints could be the result of a fulfilment solution well past its peak. 

6. You Forecast Rapid Growth in Short to Medium Term

Forecasting is vital for business planning. While there is no guarantee that the growth forecasts will come to fruition, it gives you more than enough time to prepare for the anticipated rise in demand. When planning for rapid growth, you must evaluate the capabilities of your existing fulfilment infrastructure. 

Not every fulfilment solution is scalable. And even when it is, it may only be scalable up to some point before the volume and complexity of orders exceed its capability. Once your order volume goes past this tipping point, the increasing strain on your fulfilment could eventually stifle growth. Upgrading your solution in good time or at least laying down the groundwork required to make that happen is key. 

Wrapping Up

Humans innately find comfort in the predictable, the tried-and-tested, and the known. So, making the shift to an upgraded fulfilment solution is not something that will always happen without some reluctance especially if things are not coming apart at the seams in the now. Also, upgrading is expensive, so this is something you want to do only when you are certain it is the right move. 

By keeping an eye on these six signals, you are more likely to make the requisite changes to your fulfilment systems at the right time.