With over 100,000 freight forwarder competitors around the world, standing out to new customers can be extremely difficult.
Along with significant growth in the forwarder market, now valued at 186 Billion USD, there has been a significant shift in what customers expect from their forwarders and logistics service providers. Simply promising to deliver freight on time isn’t enough - customers want more insights into their shipments. From the ability to track a container at any given time, to detailed reports about the carbon impacts of shipments, customers expect easy and immediate access to the data surrounding all of their shipments.
Thankfully, there are massive amounts of data generated by shipping activities that you as a forwarder can leverage and share with your customers. Being able to offer this data and connect it into your customer’s systems is what will help you stand out against competitors when finding and onboarding new customers. So where do you start?
Connect Customers to Better Supply Chain Visibility
Shipper customers are searching for better data and insights into where their shipments are, when they can expect them to arrive, and what happened to their freight along the way, especially as disruptions and delays continue to impact most routes. So, being able to offer end-to-end supply chain visibility to potential customers is a huge competitive advantage.
Leveraging your existing supply chain data from your TMS and third-party providers, you can provide instant insights into every aspect of your customer’s freight journey. From the second they send a booking request, you’ll have a digital trail of all shipment activities. Once their freight is loaded onto the ship, truck or plane, you can track the status and share data back to your customers to keep them informed. If delays are expected, your customers will know before you even have to reach out to them, and with advanced freight visibility data, they will know exactly which of their products will be late so they can plan ahead.
New customers are searching for a fully digital forwarding experience. Better supply chain data and data integrations will help you capture their attention and ultimately earn their business.
Repeatable Processes Build Relationships
Slow onboarding is a bad way to start a new customer relationship. And without systems in place to make data integration and connections to your customers easy, the relationship can start off sour.
Instead of building custom connections to each of your customers systems, you can leverage pre-mapped data integrations that cut the implementation time significantly. For example, if your customer wants visibility into their shipment milestones or advance shipment notifications, you can integrate data from your TMS to a variety of shipper systems so they get invoices and documents without having to ask or wait on your team to send them.
This process, and many other core business processes like it, are essential to automate and replicate as you grow your business. Being able to quickly connect to new customers not only builds their confidence in your team, but ensures that you become a sticky part of their supply chain operations.
Chain.io Simplifies Data Integrations
Building a loyal customer base and fostering true partnerships takes time. Sharing valuable supply chain data and automated, real-time updates with your customers will help you earn their trust faster.
Chain.io’s canonical data model quickly connects customers’ tech to yours, no matter how complex or simple. Rooted in supply chain best-practices, our integration platform accommodates your customers’ unique needs without placing the burden on IT resources, helping you get them onboard faster than ever, just like we helped Freight Right Global Logistics gain more efficiency with our pre-built integrations.
Our team of logistics service and supply chain experts have the experience to get you and your customers up and running quickly. Data migrations or customer onboards that generally take months can be done in weeks using pre-mapped solutions and industry best practices.
Ready to get started? Speak to one of our integration experts to learn more.
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