Shippers responding to a survey conducted by Transport Intelligence rated “proactive notification of problems” as the most important aspect of customer service (4.58 on a scale where 5 is most important). When asked how forwarders perform on this and other factors, shippers said proactive notification was the second worst area (2.72 or unacceptable on the scale).
The survey, which was also provided as a link for Logistics Today e-news readers, covered over 100 major manufacturers and retailers in the U.S. and Europe.
Reliability, which tied with proactive notification at 4.58 on the scale of importance, exhibited a slightly smaller gap between expectation and performance. Shippers ranked forwarders 3.02 or just barely above “acceptable” on reliability.
“It is worrying that the two most important attributes of customer service have been rated by shippers amongst the lowest in terms of freight forwarder performance,” said John Manners-Bell, CEO of Transport Intelligence. “The gap shows there is a clear opportunity for the leading freight forwarders to win competitive advantage by addressing these issues,” he continued.
Survey participants received a summary of the results. The results of the shipper survey and a survey of forwarders will be released in Transport Intelligence’s Global Freight Forwarding report, which will be published later in April and will be available for $940.
