Keep calm and deliver on
Tomi Šikoronja moves tens of tonnes of food every week across London. As Operations Manager at Collectiv Food, he does a vital job in making sure restaurants and professional kitchens get their ingredients right on time. Here he talks about why customer service is fundamental to what he does.
What’s the value of customer service for you?
It’s pretty central to everything we do. We recently started working with DHL to fulfil our orders and the first thing we briefed them on was our standards of customer satisfaction.
Our operations are designed to bring food to our customers cheaply and reliably and with the longest shelf-life possible. We buy on-demand rather than selling by catalogue and we deliver from source to customer as quickly as possible. It’s an original and ground-breaking model and it comes with its unique logistical challenges.
First of all, each customer orders from 5 to 6 producers. We handle the consolidation of all goods for them. We also factor in the prep time specific to each customer, be it for roasting, smoking or marinating their ingredients. We have to order the right quantities, move them at the right time, get them all at our hub, pick them and send them on with sufficient shelf-life.
It’s much trickier than just picking up products off the shelf at a warehouse, as typical wholesalers would do.
Give us an example of things you have to deal with at Collectiv Food.
A typical issue is a producer turning up late. It’s imperative to fulfil the delivery on time so in that scenario we have to make a lot of phone calls and find a vehicle that will get that delivery where it is meant to be at the time it is meant to be there.
One of our customers once was almost shutting down business for the day because they had forecasted their stock wrongly and they were running out of core ingredients. We stepped in to help them and called twenty different logistics companies to find one that would be able to go to our hub and deliver more ingredients to them on that same day. We eventually got everything sorted and thankfully they were able to keep the restaurant open and profits coming in.
These stories are not unusual! They happen two or three times per month, but giving great customer service makes me feel appreciated. It’s like the customers see me as someone who would go the extra mile to make them satisfied.
What’s the measure of good customer service?
It’s all about the relationships you build. If you have a good relationship with your customers, they understand better what you do and what happens behind the scenes when the order is placed.
Say there is an issue with an order and you need to sort it out as soon as possible. If you have that good relationship in place the customers will trust you are handling the situation the best way possible, and will be flexible with their expectations.
Ultimately, the most important thing is that the customers are happy. If they are, everything else falls into place by itself.
Food trends for restaurant professionals
For updates on global food prices and tips for business success, follow this Medium publication.
