IT Services Company Reduced Sales Order Lead Time By 33% With GLSS
California
I.T. Services
Operations
33%
- The problem: The company was experiencing excessive sales order lead timesâaveraging 21 days from order placement to deliveryâwhich led to customer complaints, delayed revenue, and growing risk of losing business to competitors.
- By streamlining the order fulfillment process, the company reduced sales order lead time from 21 days to 14 days, achieving a 33% improvement in delivery speed and significantly increasing customer satisfaction and on-time revenue.
Order fulfillment can make or break a customerâs experience. When sales orders take too long to process, customers become frustrated and revenue is delayed. This organization was facing exactly that challengeâsales orders were taking far too long to move from entry to delivery.
To meet the challenge, the company turned to GLSSâs Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Training & Certification, knowing that its proven methods and practical training could help uncover the problems and deliver results quickly. Guided by the principles of Ethical EfficiencyâĒ, they focused not just on speed but on making the process better for everyone involved.
On average, it was taking 21 days from the time a sales order was placed until the product reached the customer. This slow turnaround was drawing frequent complaints and putting customer relationships at risk. Leadership knew that if the lead time didnât improve, customers would turn to competitors, and the company would lose both sales revenue and loyalty.
Through the improvement process, several key root causes were uncovered:
- Access restrictions: Limited system permissions prevented team members from seeing or updating needed information.
- Incomplete shipping data: Sales representatives often failed to keep customer shipping addresses up to date, meaning freight companies could not be pre-assigned.
- Lack of standardized forms: There was no consistent process for gathering and maintaining required customer information.
- Delayed payment verification: Credit card information and authorization records were not collected up front, so payment checks were pushed to the end of the process.
These gaps created repeated delays and unnecessary back-and-forth, adding days to every order.
The team, equipped with GLSS tools and methods, worked together to close these gaps:
- Designed a standard process for gathering customer profile information, including shipping and payment details.
- Created standardized forms that required all âmust-haveâ fields to be completed before an order could be submitted.
- Improved inventory data management so stock information stayed current and accurate.
- Updated access permissions to ensure all process participants had visibility to the data they needed.
- Provided training for sales representatives on how to explain the importance of accurate information to customers.
- Developed and maintained a list of available freight companies, tied directly to customer shipping addresses for quick assignment.
with GLSS
This project shows how improvement work, when supported by the right training, creates lasting results. By utilizing GLSS Training & Certification, the organization not only fixed its immediate order fulfillment challenges but also built a stronger foundation for future growth.
GLSSâs innovative instructional design, practical content, and focus on Ethical EfficiencyâĒ helped the team move faster, document results, and sustain the gains. With these new skills and processes in place, the company is now positioned to serve customers better and achieve even greater success in the years ahead.
*We value our clients’ confidentiality. While we’ve changed their names, the results are real.
