Customer Service in Logistics – A Theoretical Framework

The article is devoted to the analysis of the issue of customer service in logistics. The article indicates theoretical aspects relating to the issues of logistic customer service defined in the literature. Customer service finds close connections with all logistic processes taking place in the enterprise as well as between enterprises operating in modern supply chains. The wide nature and scope of logistic customer service activities determine the necessary coordination, especially monitoring the areas and relations between the company and the customer, in terms of the system it is the coordination of relations between all elements of the system. Having and managing logistics in an enterprise and supply chains will not be complete without the location and proper treatment of customer service (Wasielewska-Marszałkowska, 2014). The article aims to identify the essence of logistic customer service and to characterize its elements. The set goal is accompanied by the following research question: What is the role of logistic customer service in companies’ operations? The systematic literature review method was used to review the literature on logistics customer service. The review was carried out following the methodology described in the publication of W. Czakon, Fundamentals of research methodology in management sciences, Wolters Kluwer, Warsaw 2015, pp. 119-139. The authors conducted a literature review in 5 stages, i.e. defining the purpose of the research, selecting basic literature, selecting publications, developing a publication database, and analyzing the content. The resources of popular databases containing scientific publications, including post-conference articles, were analyzed. Full-text foreign databases such as Emerald Insight, SinceDirect, Scopus®, Springer Nature Journals, Web of Science, Wiley, and Polish databases – BazEkon and Ceon were analyzed. The EBSCO Discovery Service tool was used to search for publications.