By: Flaka Ismaili    February 24, 2023

6 Factors Why Customer Service In Logistics Is Important

Efficient logistics management provides clear visibility of transportation activities involved in ensuring smooth supply chain operations. By analyzing the transportation data, companies can implement better route optimization to avoid potential disruptions and also save on operational and fuel costs. Logistics management plays a crucial role in improving the customer experience by ensuring that orders are delivered on time. This can be achieved through careful planning and coordination of all the activities involved in the supply chain, such as transportation, warehousing, and distribution. By optimizing these processes, eCommerce businesses can reduce delivery times and meet customer expectations for timely delivery. Logistics planners must understand all logistics services offered by the firm so that they can articulate the benefits to the customer.

After confirming your order, the supplier or manufacturer is responsible for transporting the goods to the appropriate location or distribution channel by freight shipping (usually via ocean, air, ground, or a combination). A business can have goods sent to their retail stores, warehouses, fulfillment centers, or other distribution centers. Effective logistics management is important to companies for a number of reasons, both positive and negative.

Proven Ways to Generate Quality Leads in Logistics

The contents of this blog are made available for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any legal, business, or financial decisions. This blog has been prepared to the best of Flexport’s knowledge and research; however, the information presented in this blog herein may not reflect the most current regulatory or industry developments. Neither Flexport nor its advisors or affiliates shall be liable for any losses that arise in any way due to the reliance on the contents contained in this blog. Handle time is an important metric, but it doesn’t tell you the whole story. Analyze a range of metrics to better understand the customer and their relationship with your company overall. Eighty-five percent of customers expect consistent interactions across departments.

All these strategies are critical for an effective logistics customer service (Fig. 8.1

). Quality customer service in logistics can produce long-term transportation savings, on-time delivery, peace of mind, happy customers, and more time to focus on other areas of your business. In contrast, poor communication and customer service in logistics can end in costly fees or damaged relationships with customers. It helps to streamline various operations and provides an overall picture of the entire logistics system- it tracks the live status of the goods, customer details, customer trends, transportation processes, and more.

What is an accurate description of logistics management?

Free shipping is another thing consumers tend to perceive as a “discount” – given the overall price will be lower with it. Don’t forget – 9 out of 10 consumers say that free shipping is the #1 incentive to shop online even more. With a free trial, potential customers are less worried about buyer’s remorse and risky investments because there’s no upfront fee. We’ve already discussed the importance of making the refund policy easier to understand by using basic terms. But, if you want, you can do something extra and add your brand’s voice in the text. One mistake many business owners make when it comes to the things we’ll be discussing in this section is thinking they are making compromises and sacrifices that are hurting the brand financially.

Operating without a logistics CRM and integrated quoting tool leads to a lack of historical customer data analysis. This deficiency hampers your ability to effectively engage and close deals. Reduced deal closures directly correlate to a decline in logistics sales conversion rates. Learn about the importance of a customer relationship management tool in logistics by realizing the challenges without it. He is responsible for a team of 20 translators, reviewing content suggestions and setting up processes. In his free time he likes to go to gym, and is also passionate about gaming and cooking.

The Power of Collaboration in Logistics: Examples of Successful Collaboration in Logistics

Our algorithm will propose the best prices based on your specific requirements. Additionally, you should regularly review your procedures to ensure they adhere to current laws and regulations. Additionally, you can increase your savings by maximising the use of shared resources and taking advantage of economies of scale when possible. Implement a performance evaluation system and steps for future development, and lay out a clear career path, so everyone is on the same page. Performance evaluations should be more than just tracking performance from month to month. Instead, you must look at how each employee contributes to the company’s overall growth and develop a clear guidance plan for future goals.

In addition to resolution times, providing consistent resolutions is also an important metric. Think of your customer service operation like McDonald’s where customers get consistent service across the board. No matter what agent they speak with — whether via chat, email or phone – they are providing consistent answers to customers reporting the same issue. Average resolution time is how long it takes to solve a support ticket from start to finish, and the length of time usually varies based on the complexity of the issue. However, lower resolution times are a better marker for success as they ensure quick resolutions of customer calls. Leverage AI in customer service to improve your customer and employee experiences.

Think about it – people today don’t usually get to enjoy a lot of free time. Thus, spending even half an hour dealing with customer support can seriously harm customer satisfaction. The third barrier pointed out by our case LSPs on the top of employees’ resistance to change is technology adoption. This has already been pointed out by Kane et al. (2018), IS literature (e.g. Oliveira and Martins, 2011), as well as in logistics research (Mathauer and Hofmann, 2019). Our case LSPs admitted that, in spite of having their IT competence centers, they struggle with decisions what technology and when they should invest in. Most often the problem lays down in the intra-firm collaboration between the IT department, which in most cases leads DT projects, and operations, which usually are the future owner of the solution.

Use the performance data of previous suppliers to help you decide which suppliers to use going forward. Ask a supplier you are considering to share data about past performance with other companies like yours. Tools like Dropoff’s shipment tracking feature give you real-time updates on the status of your package, so you can rest assured that your shipment is on track.

Order constraints are preset expectations or requirements that prevent flexibility in order processing and delivery. Due to the order constraints, the cost of order processing and delivery can increase. The example of order constraints includes minimum order size, fixed days for receiving order, maintained specifications for order, etc. Order constraints also help with the order planning as the restrictions are known ahead of time. Presetting specifications also help low volume markets serve reliable and efficiently in a continuous manner. In the corporate business climate, all these elements are considered individual components of the larger overall customer service.

Using a support chatbot can help with this, though you shouldn’t rely on it all the time. The Knowledge Base/FAQ sections we previously discussed can help with the “24/7 feel” as well. You could even combine the FAQ/Knowledge Base section with the auto-reply we discussed above. Link it in the email body so that customers can check it out if they want to until you get back to them. One way to offer self-help features is to provide access to an in-depth Knowledge Base or FAQ section.

Where turnover appears unnaturally high, consider holding exit interviews to identify any issues then address those problems. This can be for a variety of reasons, some of which can be addressed, others, such as the job not being what they expected, cannot. Having all these channels open to your customers and your staff means that customers know they can always get in touch via one of these mediums. One thing that annoys many customers is complicated email chains with multiple recipients. While your customers do want to be kept apprised of all aspects of their contract, they do not need to see an email that has bounced between multiple staff members. Try and allocate one staff member to handle that customer throughout the relationship with one other as backup.

According to Yin (2014), a multicase study approach should follow a sampling logic. Therefore we decided to identify case firms by purposefully applying the following criteria. First, we decided to select LSPs who have introduced or are introducing at least a few digital initiatives. Third, we focused on large LSPs, in the top 20 LSPs (Brdulak, 2018), who are global players with experience in digitalization. In order to increase theoretical generalizability, we selected case firms that differ by the level of their digital maturity from Fashionistas, through Conservatives, up to Digirati (Westerman et al., 2014). Within the nine case firms that made up our sample, we identified the digital experts primarily leading the organization’s DT, i.e.

About Salesforce

Data from the gateway is transferred to the IT central of the ship through a satellite network. If a company manages its problems, applying data analysis to small projects, it will grow in global monitoring. ShipBob is a global omnichannel logistics platform that’s prepared to help your business scale its logistics with ease at any size. Processing orders, generating purchase orders and other documents, generating pick lists, and invoicing are all good choices for automating. If you partner with a 3PL or logistics platform, they may already have these functions automated to save time and money.

But these advances don’t matter much if speed, convenience and the right information are lacking. Net Promoter Score© surveys are also a great way to ask for valuable feedback. If you’re not familiar with them, they are basically 1-question surveys that ask clients how willing they are, on a scale from 0 to 10, to recommend your business, products, and services to other people. The questions can also be open-ended if you want to ask customers for more in-depth feedback. Well, we’ve compiled this thorough list of 19 great customer service tips showing how to improve your customer satisfaction levels and boost loyalty. Knowledge is essential for dealing with customers who have questions about the products or services that your business offers.

• C2 and C4 operate corporate accelerators and run programs selecting startups they want to invest in.
• Luckily, with the metrics, tools, and strategies shared in this article, you’ll have everything you need to keep your customers coming back.
• And with the industry constantly shifting and evolving, especially in terms of technology, continual learning has never been more important.
• When a customer reaches out, the agent has all relevant data on a single screen — demographics, order history, preferences, and more — so they know how to help.

The true test of your customer support team’s competence is in how they deal with difficult customers. Customers may lose their cool because of a product or service issue that they might be facing or because they might be dissatisfied with your support quality. Whatever be the reason for their grievance, customer support agents must maintain their composure, and avoid getting defensive, as doing so will only exacerbate the situation. While your customer support team may strive hard to deliver timely, constructive, and personalized customer service, they are bound to face the following challenges at various stages of interacting with customers.

Transportation logistics management is a subset of logistics management that specifically focuses on the planning, implementation, and control of the movement of goods from one location to another. It involves selecting the most efficient mode of transportation, arranging the routing and scheduling of deliveries, and ensuring the timely and safe delivery of goods to their intended destination. Goods need to be delivered efficiently and seamlessly while adhering to road safety rules and set time deliverables. Smart route planning ensures a good fulfillment rate and customer satisfaction. Logistics focuses on optimizing operations and improving efficiency without affecting the profit margins.

Read more about Importance Of Customer Service In To Avoid Major Problems? here.

Flaka Ismaili

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