How Chex Finer Foods Beat Their Customer Service Goals By 2%

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.

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The Need

In recent months, Chex had planned growth with a major new account acquisition, which included a commitment to maintain customer service levels of 92% or more. The company also recently hired some new buyers to support their growth and over time, the team began to struggle and was falling short of their commitment.

Customer service levels ran 1-2 percentage points above the goal.

The Result

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 BFC’s Buying Solutions team to see what could be done. The HIMPACT team immediately began training the new buyers on how to accurately follow the inventory management system that was being used at Chex Finer Foods. The BFC 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 HIMPACT 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%

The BFC Difference

BFC Software is a food-focused solutions platform—from forecasting and warehouse operations to the final mile. Designed to evolve with industry demands, BFC helps customers stay ahead with data-driven insights that boost efficiency, improve performance, and optimize operations.