Misaligned Seven S's at Winder Farms

Everything about a milk delivery company portrays an aura of service. They come to your house, when you want, with what you want. Also, to justify their premium prices they offer premium products. After my mission, I worked for Winder Farms and was consistently impressed with how their alignment allowed them to offer superior service.


Their internet system allowed customers to change their order anytime before 8pm the night before a delivery. Shared values were instilled in every company meeting and at the corporate headquarters that still looks like an old barn. Their strategy was to become a farmer's market on wheels and they successfully increased their product offering to over 300. Their skills were to find local inexpensive organic/natural food. Structure allowed for a great delivery system. The style was impressive, tracing their roots back to John Winder who would deliver milk directly to local hotels.

Unfortunately, they had a misalignment with their staff. The customer service department was horrible and their incentive structure was not aligned with providing great service. The department was supposed to give out as few credits as possible thus leading to very stingy customer service representatives. I did not work in this department, but I heard of a rep denying a credit as small as 20 cents because, "if the customer can't afford 20 cents, they shouldn't be getting Winder Farms." I do not know if their have been any changes in the last few years, but at the time the churn rate for Winder Farms was a major impediment to their growth.