Customer Service Associate/Manager

Job Description:

Job Title:

Customer Service

Summary:

The customer service associate, branded retail owns the day to day customer service relationship with retailers, with a specific focus on natural channel retail (including direct and distributor serviced retail) to ensure a smooth start up and ongoing world class service as we grow and expand in this channel. The customer service associate receives the weekly retail order, and ensures accurate entry into Netsuites, to enable both operational and financial integration into the order to cash and forecast to stock process. The customer service associate works cross functionally with logistics, the butchery, demand and supply planning and participates in the monthly S&OP process to ensure we service at 99% fill rate and On Time In Full (OTIF), generally regarded as world class service within CPG. The customer service associate owns frequent and timely customer communication in relation to any order cuts, pending issues and out of stocks. The customer service associate will have a deep understanding of natural channel retail, order patterns, and will work with operational supply planning to ensure appropriate safety stock is available (and highlight where more is needed, e.g. during seasonal peaks or leading up to heavy promotional periods) and will ensure the right inventory is allocated to prevent and address shortages.

Job Duties:

From a KPI perspective the customer service associate is ultimately accountable for order entry accuracy, and customer advocacy and understanding within the organization. On a day to day basis, this position will be responsible for
– Accurate and timely order entry (and later, ensuring seamless email PO / EDI communication) as well as order issue resolution (retail ordering is system generated)
– Generating a weekly cut report for key customers, highlighting any pending supply issues early, and working proactively with retailers and the supply chain team to ensure inventory availability and allocation
– Work with logistics to ensure timely delivery to DC‘s and maintaining a 99% OTIF metric
– Working with retailers to understand and resolve any incremental fines or costs generated by service or set up issues
– Communicating changes to customer requirements (e.g. pallet and case labeling) through the supply chain organization
– Working with supply chain and marketing on new production introduction, new product set up, new product pricing (accuracy in system) and a robust supply pipeline
– Work with supply chain on discontinuation of items and enable a smooth and predictable phase out of discontinued SKU’s (discontinuation driven by performance at retail)
– Provide subject matter expertise as we expand to different regions and supply models (e.g. distributor) with retailers

Background Requirements:

Qualifications/Experience:
– Minimum of 5-7 years of branded retail customer service experience in high growth CPG (experience with natural channel retail and/or food industry strongly preferred)
– BSC in supply chain or equivalent work experience
– Experience with natural channel retail, EDI and ERP systems (eg Netsuites)
– Strong written and verbal communication skills