4 Ways To Improve Customer Service In Your Logistics Business

MHWmagazine November 11, 2021 Featured News, Supply Chain

Customer experience is becoming the top priority in many businesses, even in logistics service providers. It seems that everyone is buzzing about it, and with good reason. A solid 80% of consumers would pay more for an improved customer experience, one study states. (1)

Positive interaction with customers, whether face to face, over the phone, or online, allows businesses to put their best foot forward. That’s because excellent customer service results in higher customer satisfaction, higher retention rate and repeat sales.

Delivering exceptional customer service, no doubt, should be the priority of every company. Here, we talk about four ways logistics businesses can improve their customer service. Read on to learn more.

What’s a logistic business?

First, let’s define what a logistics business is and what it does. A logistics firm is any business that plans, implements, manages, controls and stores goods and services between the points of origins to consumption points. In other words, logistics is the practice of coordinating and moving matériel, inventory, equipment and even people from one location to the other.

How to improve customer service in a logistics company

There are several ways of enhancing customer experience in your logistics business. Here are some strategies you can implement:

1. Collect client feedback

Understanding where you are with your clients is the first step toward improving customer service in your logistics business.

Customers are eager to share their experiences and voice their concerns — you just have to encourage them to do it. You may receive negative feedback, yes, but this will allow you to adjust or improve where necessary. The opportunity to improve will ensure that you continue providing excellent service to your clients.

There are several ways to collect client feedback. You can do it through the following:

• Surveys
• Direct phone call
• Social media post
• A chatbot on your business website or app

2. Leverage omnichannel technology in communicating with clients

People interact with businesses across multiple channels nowadays. They may contact you through your customer service department, website, social media pages and more. The challenge for logistics service providers is how to deliver a consistent, contextual experience across every channel and at every touchpoint throughout the customer journey.

Similarly, here’s what logistics businesses can do — leverage omnichannel technology in communicating with clients. They should look for a software solution that allows them to hold their communication across different channels in one single, intuitive platform. The good news is that many CCaaS in the UK and around the world already act like that. They allow contact centres as a service provider to connect with their customers when and where their clients want to interact with their brand — phone calls, text messages, email, bots, video and more — all from one system.

By leveraging omnichannel technology, logistics companies can aggregate customer data from multiple channels, enabling representatives to quickly understand a customer inquiry based on previous interactions. This would result in faster response times and overall better customer experiences.

3. Adapt logistics process for personalization

People are no longer satisfied with services or products and messaging being delivered in the same manner for every person. That’s why poor personalization practices lead to brands losing 38% of their customers. It makes sense because every prospect and customer have specific needs. This is true even in the business-to-business (B2B) world. (2)

Logistics service providers must adapt their logistics process for personalization to survive now and in the future. Below are a couple of tips that can help logistics companies better personalize their operations:

• Understand who your customers are: Understanding your customers better is the first step toward adapting your logistics process for personalization. From demographic basics to preferences, study the data that your clients have provided to you. Doing so will help you redefine your goals as their logistics partner.

With a strong grasp of your customer’s identity, you can start seeing the path toward end-to-end visibility in the logistics service that your company provides. This will also help you ensure that your clients’ individual needs are met for maximum customer satisfaction.

• Build an integrated network: This tip applies to both the tools you use and the people in your company. Why is building an integrated network essential for improving customer service?

You could start with the tools logistics firms use in their operations. The problem is that many logistics service providers see their business apps, such as customer relationship management (CRM) software and warehouse inventory system, as independent structures. As a result, there’s a lack of communication between these systems.

Instead of looking at your business tools as independent platforms, let them ‘talk’ to each other. Doing so can significantly reduce downtime and help make shipping operations run much more efficiently. More importantly, it helps your company to provide solutions to customers’ concerns adequately. After all, most business systems interact with customer data.

Of course, it’s also essential that the different departments or people within your company talk to one another. That’s because collaboration facilitates sharing of ideas, which can bring about creative solutions necessary for optimizing the communication between your systems.

Simply put, logistics firms can adapt their current process to curate an improved customer experience by utilizing valuable client data and ensuring systems communications.

4. Automate the majority of the logistics process

Automation is one of the best things that can happen in a logistics business. Automation in logistics refers to the utilization of software or machinery to enhance the efficiency of operations. What usually gets automated are the processes that must be performed in the distribution centre or warehouse.

The benefits of automation in logistics businesses are countless, but one significant advantage is that it makes it possible to carry out the logistics process faster, more precisely and more economically. Consequently, automation could also eliminate errors and mistakes that could’ve been committed when relying on manual work, thus improving customer service.

Final thoughts

Better customer service increases a logistics firm’s profitability. That’s because outstanding customer experience reduces customer churn and transforms clients into brand advocates, enhancing a logistics service provider’s reputation and popularity. It also sets your company apart from others while staying cost-effective.

Improve customer service in your logistics business by taking the time to collect client feedback and leveraging omnichannel technology in communicating with clients. Also, don’t forget to adapt the logistics process for personalization and automate the majority of it. These might seem like minor changes, but they can definitely help your brand become a top player in the current consumer-driven landscape.

Just keep in mind that improving customer experience in your logistics business is an ongoing endeavour — it’s never complete. So keep optimizing your operations whenever and wherever possible.