Freight forwarders and logistics providers need to provide an optimal shipper customer experience in order to increase sales in this competitive market. Here we break down exactly how to create an outstanding shipper experience.

1. The
Shipper
Customer
Journey
TEU
Checklist

2. Picture a roadmap
that charts the route a customer takes from first encountering your product and follows him throughout the sale cycle.
Recommendation
Research
Talk to
Pilot
Purchase
Repeat Purchase

3. The customer journey is thesum of all experiences a customer has with your brand.
(which means that even after a sale, the journey is still underway)
Brand Awareness
Marketing
Inbound/ Outbound Contact
Sales
Quote/ Rate
Shipment
Account Management
Sample Freight Customer Journey

4. Why should freight forwarders care?
Because you need to stick out.

5. Ever wonder what shippers want?
The same thing forwarders want:
Lower Overheads
Faster Service
Accurate, timely and competitive rates
A relationship that works

6. The Facts
Freight forwarding is highly fragmented. The top 10 ocean forwarders only control 10% of the market and the top 10 air forwarders only control ~25% of the market.
Over 20% of shippers believe forwarders don’t communicate openly and transparently. And shippers are reducing the number of 3PLs they work with.
About 40% of shippers are unhappy with their 3PL’s IT services.
Increased rate volatility means that shippers are shopping around for shorter-term contracts that shortens customer lifespan.
Source
Source
Source
40%
Source
An outstanding customer journey means that despite competition, shippers will be knocking on your door.

7. Get on top of your customer journey.
After you break down the stages of your customer journey, assess how these four factors play a role at every stage.
Required Action
Incentive
Problems
Showstoppers
What does the customer need to do to advance?
What is he focused on?
What is pushing the customer to the next step?
What differentiates the way you do it from the way your competitor does it?
Does your customer know what the next step is?
Is he clear about the service you provide?
Do they recognize why you are the best solution?
What is stopping customer advancement?
Why is the customer dropping off in the middle?
Click for a sample customer journey map

8. Dive right into
ways you can improve your shippers’ customer journey
7

9. Improving the Shipper Customer Journey
1/7
Embrace multichannel visibility
1
#GoSocial

10. Increase your visibility by getting out there on all channels, not just trade shows.
Position your business at a thought leader by providing information over social media and expand on that with press visibility.
Improving the Shipper Customer Journey
1/7
#PossibleIdeasForSocialMediaActivity
Tweet latest rate changes
Blog about industry changes
Live-tweet shows you attend
Showcase key clients
Create a brand personality with employee updates
Find us online!

11. Improving the Shipper Customer Journey
2/7
Get online.
2
It’s how companies interact today.

12. If an online prospect can’t generate a quote online or, worse, can’t even get in touch, there’s a serious problem. Your website is the face of your company.
Improving the Shipper Customer Journey
2/7
This is how a prospect can quote from the websites of the top 15 global forwarders:
Online RFP73%
Email20%
Telephone7%
In other words:
An advanced forwarder can beat 4/15 of the biggest global forwarders online.

13. Improving the Shipper Customer Journey
3/7
Rapid Turnaround
3
Time is money.
For forwarders and shippers.

14. If you can book a ticket around the world in seconds online, you should be able to book freight shipments too.
Learn more about these experiments
In an experiment with the top 15 forwarders in the world, only 30% could generate multi-modal spot quotes in less than two days.
Slow quoting means costly overhead for forwarders and shippers…
and more chances to differentiate from these guys.
Quoting faster also means less overheadper quote.
Improving the Shipper Customer Journey
3/7

15. Improving the Shipper Customer Journey
4/7
Self-Service
4
There’s a reason “Buy it now” beats “Buy it later”.

16. Revolutionize the shipper customer journey by enabling key shippers to instantly generate multimodal freight quotes onlineand enjoy:
Dramatically lower overhead
5% increase in quote win rate
Increased shipper satisfaction
Visibility into shipper activity
It’s an instant gratification generation.
Half of all website visitors will leave a site if it takes over ten seconds for a video to load.
See the research.
Improving the Shipper Customer Journey
4/7

17. Improving the Shipper Customer Journey
5/7
Competitive
value
5
It’s not about price.

18. Research has found that forwarders that respond to RFPs focus only on
Improving the Shipper Customer Journey
5/7
price.
Separate from the pack by providing :
Professional guidance
Comprehensive pricing
Clear, accurate quotes and surcharge breakdowns
Thousands of forwarders are competing for business by squeezing margins.
See the research here

19. Improving the Shipper Customer Journey
6/7
Automate.
6
But keep your relationship manual.

20. How do your sales executives spend their time?
Research shows that 44% of all time is spent dealing with internal issues that can be automated instead of managing relationships.
Improving the Shipper Customer Journey
6/7
The more automate, the more time you free up to provide customers with better service.
Source: CapGemini2015 3PL Study
3PL Sales Executive Time Spend

21. Improving the Shipper Customer Journey
7/7
Be there for them.
7
It’s not just an account.
It’s a relationship.

22. Improving the Shipper Customer Journey
7/7
30%
of all shippers don’t feel like communication with forwarders is open or transparent.
Mistakes are inevitable with complex supply chains.
Keep customers in the loop to win trust (and business) by being open, honest and prompt.
AKA 30% of shippers could be won over by a forwarder with better communication patterns
(
(

23. The Customer Journey Checklist.
Increase visibility with a multi-channel presence
Provide a killer online window-front experience
Provide break-neck service to reduce overhead
Allow customers to generate quotes independently
Differentiate on service as well as price
Automate processes to white-glove relationships
Communicate constantly

24. Are you giving shippers what they want?
Join dozens of forwarders that are automating quoting, reducing overhead and winning more business.

25. freightos.com