Establishing Customer Service and Logistics Management Relationship under Uncertainty

Few studies have investigated how customer service plays its role in logistics management. Despite numerous in-depth researches in supply chain management, the relationship between customer service and logistics management has received little attention. As both activities are practically human-oriented activities, they are inherently difficult to be mutually supportive, particularly in the presence of uncertainty. This study will investigate how they are associated so as to elevate their operational efficiency and quality, thereby reaching higher business achievement. Our proposed approach encompasses three investigative stages. First, we identify the primary factors in logistics activities that affect customer service quality and efficiency. This is accomplished through a set of preliminary survey on small, medium, and large firms. Next, a conceptual model is established based on those factors to serve as a framework for empirical hypothesis of uncertainty relationship. We employ exploratory factor analysis, One-Way ANOVA, and principal component analysis to examine the correlation among relevant influential factors. Lastly, we conduct a case study to reaffirm the validity of the model. Our findings reveal that only firm size has no effect on customer service performance. The rest of the hypothesized factors mostly show that both activities have direct positive associations, especially to the financial performance, with a few exceptions on internal uncertainty factors such as executive support, IT use and skills. The benefits will certainly be conducive toward improving customer service performance in support for more efficient logistics management leading to the success of business as a whole. We plan to incorporate stochastic process into the proposed model to accommodate and assess the risk involved.