Chex Finer Foods is a leading specialty and natural foods distributor servicing retail grocery stores throughout the East Coast. Chex is a third-generation business that was founded in 1965 by Jay Isenberg along with his wife, Dorothy, and their son, David. Nearly fifty-five years later, the business has grown immensely and continues to thrive with the third generation of Isenberg’s now at the helm.
Client Challenge
In just a short time, customer service levels ran 1-2 percentage point above the goal.
Results of HIMPACT
The new team of buyers was given challenging goals right out of the gate and the initial sales growth was exceeding forecasts from their new customer. Coupled with a learning curve of being new hires, the team began experiencing some difficulties meeting their targets across all vendors. Previously, Chex was meeting its target, however, due to various circumstances and situations, it began missing the mark on this new commitment.
In order to mitigate this situation, Chex reached out to Herlitz Inventory Management to see what could be done. Herlitz immediately began training the new buyers on how to accurately follow the HIMPACT system that was being used at Chex Finer Foods. The Herlitz team assured them that by following the system recommendations, they could easily meet or exceed the 92% service level commitment.
In addition to training the new buyers, the Herlitz team started monitoring Chex on a daily and weekly basis to help further develop their abilities and teach them to be more proactive by using HIMPACT. One of the new buyers quickly caught on. This individual started getting more vendors for Chex helping them improve service to their customers. The others began to follow suit.
After a few weeks, customer service levels began to rise. Chex was soon hitting its goal of 92% for its client. In just a short time, customer service levels ran between 93% and 94% daily. Today, customer service levels continue to be above 95% every day with a monthly high as high as 96%.
