The Bible says that by their acts you will know them. And if we can apply that to people, we can also apply it to transport companies and logistics providers. So that you know what to look for, we give you some clues about what good logistics providers do.
Traits of good logistics providers
Creative ideas
A logistics operator should not be limited to receiving service requests and executing them. On the contrary, he must constantly rethink his processes and, at the same time, those of his client. To see if these can be executed in a more optimized way.
Reconsider routes, the way in which the merchandise is sent (frequency, sizes, weights, type of service), look for possible synergies… These are ways of improving operations and costs without having to resort to lowering the price in undesirable ways such as worsening the service or pay less to suppliers and workers.
take responsibility
We all make mistakes. Logically, the main objective of good transport companies is that these are reduced to a minimum. But once the error occurs, the way we react also makes a difference.
Taking responsibility means assuming the task of giving an answer and, in addition, taking the necessary measures so that the error does not occur again. Few things are more frustrating for a customer than feeling that the company ignores a problem.
Proactive attitude in good logistics providers
In a similar way to what we mentioned in the first section, good logistics providers do not wait for the incident or customer claim to arise to continue improving and changing. You must prepare for the seasonality of Christmas, you must keep track of your performance indicators to anticipate those points where problems may be occurring, etc.
Constantly questioning what can be improved, or how else we could do what we have been doing like this for years, is a very easy habit to say but very difficult to internalize.
Accessibility and communication
Logistics operators are constantly working to make traceability of shipments more complete and exhaustive. To have real-time control of all shipments. However, in the world of transport and logistics, situations always arise that are beyond the traceability systems.
It may be the need to change the destination address, give new delivery instructions, visually confirm if there has been any labeling, preparation or handling error… In other words, cases in which operators and drivers must be contacted to solve the problem.
Being accessible here means that companies make a significant investment in recognizing the relevance of customer service. In the same way, departments such as sales or administration must also be easily accessible, with which doubts or disparities that are very relevant to the relationship between the shipper and the carrier can be resolved.
There are many more things that differentiate good providers (here we have not talked about things as basic as the fulfillment of services or the variety of these). But we wanted to focus on details that are not so obvious at first glance but are very important in the long term.