Dealing with the Traditional Logistics Excuses

Posted on Friday, April 29th by

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Making all the necessary arrangements to ship a company's goods is no easy job. It involves a lot of aspects that require your attention to the last detail. The big picture though is that your shipment, whatever it may consist of, must reach the end destination in good condition and on time. Unfortunately, unpredictable situations arise all the time causing the logistics team to go through a lot of trouble to find solutions to various problems they have no control over and that tend to come with all kinds of excuses such as bad road conditions, technical problems, family emergencies or the driver's lack of experience, among others.

Of course, unexpected situations may happen. They happen all the time. However, the biggest issue usually lies in their timing in that shippers tend to be informed about these situations at the very last minute, when it is already too late to find a solution and get the entire delivery process back on track. Thus, some shipments end up being undelivered, uncollected or missing. The explanation lies in the lack of professionalism and flawed business practices of some of the carriers operating on the market and their tendency to deal with their internal issues behind the scenes.

However, such unpleasant situations can easily be avoided by turning to a third party logistics (3PL) company to handle your shipments instead of making direct contact with one carrier or another. Thus, you can rest assured that all communication between you and that carrier will be clear. In the end, reliability is an essential factor as far as your success on the shipping market is concerned.

But how do you differentiate between reliable and unreliable carriers? A carrier's background serves as a first indicator of their reliability as potential business partners. Therefore, you should start by taking a closer look at their past activity on the market for it is bound to reflect the standards of their services and practices, as will their insurance practices and their safety ratings too.

In the end, it all comes down to respect, communication, persistence and honesty. As a service provider, you need to acknowledge your customer's needs, appreciate them and ensure that they are met. This goes hand in hand with the need to meet the highest standards in terms as communication throughout the delivery process is concerned. Proper communication with the carriers throughout delivery enables you to provide real time feedback to your customers as regards the status of their shipment so as to maximise the customer satisfaction levels. Last but not least, an honest business approach will score you points with your customers as well. Of course, as already mentioned, the risk of having to deal with all sorts of last minute problems is rather high in this industry. However, you need to remember that your reputation builds on your reaction to these problems, the solutions you manage to find and also your transparent and honest communication with your customers in those situations.