Tips, Tricks for the everyday Forwarder
Everything Else
Customer Retention
0621 days
by admin
in Everything Else
Done deal! Just completed a deal. What’s next?
Customer retention is an invaluable strategy for every business alike.
Many bosses use many ways to do customer retention.
- Offering them discounts.
- Giving them freebies.
- Providing free advice in times of needs.
- Meet up for tea.
- Give vouchers for either their own products or for others like Starbucks vouchers for example.
What about freight forwarding? How does a freight forwarding company deal with customer retention?
I notice that in the freight business, customers want a no-nonsense policy when dealing with their cargo. They want a few yet important things that you have to provide in order to win them over.
1) Fast. What does it mean by fast? Simple; Be quick to respond, be quick to reply, be quick quick quick. They want quotations fast. They want the items shipped fast. Any delays, they want an explanation fast. If you can be faster than them, you win. Provide them information before they ask. Proactively tell them where is the goods currently located at. The key word here is to be PROACTIVE.
2) Precise. You need to provide accurate and to-the-point quotations. Never be too far off from the actual amount in the invoice you will charge to them. This is a fact I learnt whilst working as a developer a few years back. I was required to provide my delivery times to make sure that I deliver my projects on time. Initially I set my deadline too quick, and was lectured. After that I cowardly set super long deadlines. Of course I completed the task before schedule, but then was lectured again on the waste of presumed man hours. ALWAYS BE AS ACCURATE AS POSSIBLE. If you want to give a pre-quote to your customer, always refer to past figures. If you don’t have any, make sure you get the exact figures before quoting! Do not punch yourself by quoting too much or too little, and when the real amount appears, your customer will not be satisfied at all.
3) Explanation. Explain clearly what are the things that he/she is paying for. List down in detail each charge he/she is required to pay. Then provide a total figure at the bottom. This is a win-win, because some customers want to go through every figure. (Note: All those shipping terms, make sure you know them! They will ask about it!) Other customers only want to see the total. If the total figure is within their budget, they are good to go.
4) 24/7/365 Customer Service. Customers like to do sudden knee-jerk actions. (Actually they don’t, but they tend to do shipping-related things at the last minute) Always be ready to clear their doubts, confirm the shipments, etc. Knowing how customers think is a very valuable resource! Key is to know thy customer. You need to be 1) Quick to ensure super customer service.
Customer Service
5) Reliability. If you speak like a pro, they will know you are reliable. They will feel all cozy inside because your authoritative voice will clear their doubts and guide their cargo to safety (their destination). No harm being a ‘big brother’ to them! Always suggest alternative cost-saving ways to keep their shipping expenses to a minimum. Of course.. don’t ever do a loss-business. Don’t sacrifice your earnings to make the customer happy. Instead, try to provide them good tips to ensure that their shipment will arrive safely, on schedule, and inexpensively. I can tell you, the customers probably shipped more items of that specific kind than you. So they know what is the acceptable figure and what’s not. If you can offer a good rate to them, keep it up! Be there for them like you are there for your love-of-your-life! 
These 5 key points are enough to keep customers satisfied. Remember, the freight business is unique. The business model isn’t your regular company that could offer discounts at any time because in freight, your cost is much higher than regular businesses. Servicing lorries? Maintaining ships? They need money. Your bakery bread costs a few cents but sold for a few dollars right? See the percentage they earn! Doesn’t apply for freight!
Be smart! Keep your customers happy!
BonoKo
Shipping is always cheap
0621 days
by admin
in Everything Else
Did you know, shipping is actually a cheap thing to do? Any transportation, the fees are cheap! You can see it. Look for OCF(ocean freight rates) in ocean shipping, or transport charges for trucking. The fees are always nice and low.
*Hey, but I don’t see that in the total! It’s so much more!*
Yes, that’s where the extra charges come in. Let’s just talk about the major extra charges in shipping shall we?
BAF
BAF stands for Bunker Adjustment Factor. This crap usually pokes your freight rates in the as* because it is a supposed added rate due to increased fuel prices. And no, the amount ain’t low. You will be surprised. Many times you see BAF that costs much much more than the ocean freight rate itself. Amazing ain’t it?
Local charges at both ports import and export
This is lame. And this is why owning a port is one of the most lucrative businesses in the world. Just look at Singapore! Local charges imply charges coming from ports and the related stuff done at the ports. There’s THC – terminal handling charges: charges made for handling your cargo, there’s forwarding charges: charges you pay for letting others go through customs for you, and so on and so forth. This again, usually exceeds many folds on your actual shipping fees.
There are other fees too, but their amount is not as bad as these two. So always make sure you ask your forwarder about each individual charges! Learn and understand. Then do a comparison against other forwarders. Some forwarders mark up prices for every damn fee, leaving a bad reputation for all other forwarders. Most fees are supposed to be fixed!!!!!!
BonoKo
Is it worthy to help your customers?
0621 days
by admin
in Everything Else
Do you think helping out your customers will benefit you?
I guess some will say yes, others will say no.
Recently, I tried to assist a customer by helping to clear their summons by agreeing to pay half of their summons. For customer retention sake, I am willing to fork out my own money.
Apparently that didn’t go as planned. The customer did not wish to utilize our services further, due to other cheaper forwarders. Apparently, I forgot the most important rule of all businesses: DON’T TRUST YOUR CUSTOMERS.
[More to come]
How do you go through these kinds of situations? Please, leave a comment! Appreciate your insight and feedback..
Delivery Order
0621 days
by admin
in Everything Else
Today we talk about Delivery Order (or delivery note).
What’s a DO or delivery order for? Adding to the overly crowded list of documents required for shipping, a DO is sometimes regarded as a nuisance to some. Adding more paperwork to the abundant dead trees in your office, a DO is actually rather important.
What’s a DO for? (did I repeat this twice?) A DO is a document that ensures the items are being delivered in the same quality and quantity as you would purchase the items right from the store. Simply said, a DO confirms that you receive the right amount of things you send/receive.
How does it work? First off, a DO is usually written by the supplier or sender. He or she double checks the number of items being delivered, then takes down the items and the quantity on a piece of paper. That’s your DO. Frankly, it’s actually the exact same as a Packing List (or packing slip). So a DO and a PL are essentially the same, just for different purposes. Packing lists usually apply for ‘packing’ (house moving for example), whilst a delivery order is usually used for ‘delivery’ (supplier sending to buyer).
Why it’s important: If you are supposed to receive 1000 iPhone 4s, and you only receive 998, you know there’s something wrong with the delivery when you check your delivery order and you count the quantity. Now you don’t want 2 iPhone 4s to be missing do you? (please send one to me)
Iphone 4
Note that in some countries, the terms are used interchangeably. Don’t take the name too seriously.
Transporters calling other transporters
0621 days
by admin
in Everything Else
Today I received a call from a guy I shall call him S. Mr. S wanted to ship 24 tonnes of rice daily, from somewhere in Selangor, to Kuantan. He pretty much laid all the details required, and ask me for a price.
Angry Callers
As a freight broker without any logistics assets, I set up to contact other transporters on this. Somehow, their voice and comments seemed to show that they have been asked before. Well, if that’s the case, I called Mr. S back to check for more information.
Apparently he wanted a dirt cheap price which sums up to less than a thousand ringgit per trip. Then, probing further, he states himself as a transporter. So he’s kind of the type where he’s finding companies to outsource his own stuff, maybe so that he can proceed to send other shipments. But seriously, the price is too low. Maybe he’s trying to dig into other transporters so he can get a big amount of money just by outsourcing? (HEY THAT’s MY JOB!)
See the complication. Freight brokers, freight forwarders, everyday truck owners, big transport companies. Each asking each other for a price! Because there is no definite balanced comparison unlike the U.S., everything regarding shipping in Malaysia is pretty….. ‘guess-it-yourself’ centered.
Here’s what I study so far,
1) You have to get a sales and marketing team in order to survive. Get the big recurring clients that will pay, pay, pay!
2) You need to have in-depth knowledge on shipping. Everything on shipping. Unless, you want to do niche. Then again, being a niche, as a freight broker, that doesn’t really work well.
3) You need to know a lot of people. From shipping companies, to airliners, to truck companies. You need to have loads of contacts and links. Forge partnerships on every aspect. I believe though, the harder it is to find those partners, the better you can squeeze out a price. For eg: company A who does online advertising, will charge more as compared to company B who is pretty much unknown. Marketing from them, you see them through the marketing = more expensive.
4) Documentation. You need to have access to documents that can create partnerships for you, to provide invoicing, to provide receipts, to provide quotations, to provide every little requirements that they need.
Let’s recap. Summary of the entire process of a freight broker.
Full knowledge in logistics > Registering a logistics company and joining related associations > Getting all the contacts available on logistics > forge agreements with them Or not > Marketing, selling and advertising > Searching quotes from all available contacts > obtain second best quote and top up a little > return quote to customer.
If customer accepts > contact the transporter to pick up and send the items > invoice to client > pay transporter > client pays you.
If customer rejects price/fades away > better luck next time. Recap what went wrong. Customer service? (revise your technique for picking up calls) Taking too long to find quotes? (revise your contact list) Too expensive? (revise your contact list to get better rates)
As mentioned again and again, starting up a business, it’s not so easy.
Bad Customers
0621 days
by admin
in Everything Else
There are many customers, some short, some tall, some fat, some skinny. But most importantly, there are 2 very important types of customers: Good customers and Bad customers.
Question is, how to deal with them?
How I do it: Be nice, be honest, and always remember; he’s your customer.
Take a customer I had a long time ago. He was agitated because I requested for numerous information repeatedly. When I start to source for a suitable carrier through my shippers network for a suitable candidate that could help my customer deliver his goods, the carrier requested for many information just to make sure the tariffs and the duties are declared properly. That’s a good thing I reckon, because you don’t want to get taxed unnecessarily due to wrong declarations.. Well, the customer was agitated because he couldn’t understand why I need so much info, when all the other carriers that he had used (and all the many years experience that he had), he never had to encounter such issues. During that period, I was rather inexperienced, and keep passing the information back and forth. Carrier asks questions, I ask customer, customer returns with some info, I return to carrier, carrier asks for more info…. and so on and so forth. You get the idea. This action probably bugs the customer off, as it might have shown that I do not have that much shipping knowledge as I should if I am helping him to deliver his cargo.
After all the arrangements, the day arrived. It’s time to pick up the goods. The goods was picked; at a very late timing. The customer wanted to pick it up in the afternoon, and the truck arrived in the evening. Constant pressure from the customer was a really bad experience, so to speak. I had to keep explaining why it took so long, and the carrier I used could not answer me well. (had to pick other goods along the way, no trucks available, traffic jams, etc). This is probably my fault, the carrier isn’t a very good carrier after all. Poor service, affordable rate. You get what you pay for.
Bad Customers
End of story, I tried to settle it on my own, clarifying with the carrier as much as posssible before I connected to the customer, and asking questions I think should be asked before I return to the customer. For future customers after that incident, it seems better, as I now provide more detailed information than what they could have gotten if they tried to dig it on their own.
Conclusion:
-Always be prepared for any questions from carriers and customers – this can be gained from experience;
-Research well before choosing a specific carrier – because your reputation is only as strong as the weakest carrier;
-Make sure you try every possible beneficial options for the customer. Make the customer happy is the priority. Carrier happiness actually ranks in second. Don’t get me wrong but, your customer is the one paying you, not the carriers. You actually pay the carriers.
-Greet, befriend your customer, and always remember their name.
-Don’t ever lose your cool. Let the customer rant the hell out of his/her soul. He probably had a bad day himself.
-Be quick-witted. Being quick and create solutions out of problems will ensure that customers will rely on your skills to help them with their issues at hand. Reliance is the key.
Restoration in Progress. . .
0621 days
by admin
in Everything Else
If you frequent this blog, you should notice that this blog has been down for almost 1 full week.
What happened?
Apparently, its a combined catastrophe. Whilst having a holiday break to visit my family, the web servers hosting the Barracuda Technologies Network has a major HDD crash. And unfortunately, all the backups reside on the server itself. It’s part my fault and the web servers, so I sincerely apologize for the long downtime.
We are in the works of restoring the posts, looking forward to your renewed support!
-BonoKo
