Congratulations because you have a fantastic product that everyone likes. They love everything about it, including the price, functions, and longevity, but for whatever reason, your customer dissatisfaction rate is increasing. To address this issue, you should be looking at other factors, which are already related to shipment and deliveries. If you’re here because of that reason, this blog post will help you define some shipping mistakes that you should avoid.
A business relies heavily on providing the best customer service and ensuring that they’re happy and contented with its products. However, one vital component of ensuring customer satisfaction is deliveries and shipment. Some people hate it when their parcels arrive one day late, or too late for that matter. Thus, it’s imperative to resolve this issue by getting familiar with what common freight shipping mistakes to avoid.
Check out the following freight shipping errors that may cause your revenues to decline:
1. Defective Packaging
Your topmost priority when selling goods online should be to ensure that they’ll arrive in perfect condition. The best way to do this is to use great quality packaging. Using inadequate packaging will most definitely result in product damages, which, in turn, will dissatisfy your clients.
It’s, therefore, essential to package your items as soon as you’re aware of what they are. It’s estimated that your average shipping box will undergo significant damage during a single journey, even if it’s appropriately sized and packed. This is quite understandable, considering the friction, handling, tossing, and movements that these parcels usually experience while on transit.
Incorrect packaging or sizing increases structural damage exponentially. Before packaging and preparing the product, know which container or box is best fitted to ensure its quality retention. Let your freight forwarder, such as icecargo.com.au, take care of checking the packaging so that the item is sure to arrive safely and in perfect condition.
Pack your products according to what’s being shipped; it depends mainly on an item’s weight, size, and fragility as to how much care and protection it needs. You might find it valuable to work with packaging engineers who can design custom packages for specialty goods. If your product is veering towards fragile kinds, it’s best to reduce damages and losses by investing in sound packaging. If you want your goods to arrive intact and untouched, it’ll be worth the extra time and money.
2. Inaccurate Bill Of Lading
Ensuring that there are no mistakes is one thing to consider when sending deliveries from your business. Every freight shipment requires a bill of lading. The shipper and the carrier will have access to information through this legal paper, so this is an integral part of a successful freight shipment. In most cases, the bill of lading includes the shipper’s and recipient’s data and information, the date the product is shipped, the freight classification, the declared value, and the type of packaging used.
In it, everyone who encounters the parcel will have a glimpse of the package’s exact weight, what items are inside, and some special instructions, like speedy delivery or fragile goods. In a nutshell, when you input errors or inaccurate information on the bill of lading, this will create a ripple of mistakes from the shipper to the receiver.
There are unfortunate instances when some details that need to be included are missed out on the document. Even a wrong contact detail will already cause delay or possibility of loss. So, to avoid such mistakes, ensure that your carrier will double-check the bill of lading at all times. Although it may seem like a time-drain or a pain, there’ll be many incidents wherein double-checking for accuracy will save your company from losing a client or business.
3. Bypassing Freight Insurance
Shippers may opt not to insure their shipments in order to cut costs. But, the reality is that this will only increase risks and create stresses later on, when something terrible happens to your parcel. You may initially save a lot of money, but you’ll see that risks will outweigh the savings if you do the math.
Continuous shipping will inevitably cause damage in some form over time. There’s no such thing as ideally 100% error-free and fool-proof shipment transactions. As careful as everyone would be, there’ll be imperfections and human errors in the long run. There can be many reasons that prevent shipments from being delivered, such as truck overturning, theft, natural disasters, accidents, and countless others.
Aside from human error, even machines could potentially create mistakes, too. Insuring your goods is relatively inexpensive and keeps you from worrying about unforeseen mishaps that might occur. This would, at least, ease your mind and protect you from possibilities of financial losses.
4. Relying On A Single Freight Carrier
Some shippers make all their transportation arrangements through a single provider, which is another common mistake for businesses. Having a trusted relationship with one carrier is reasonable; however, relying on that single carrier to handle all of your shipping needs can be costly. Not to mention, you might have a hard time coordinating with them if there’ll be hiccups in their operations.
Your business will be affected directly if your freight carrier changes, like in terms of pricing, staff, and processes. There’s a risk that you may have many freights piling up and nobody are moving them as the carrier is on strike or downsizing its facilities. To enjoy competitive rates and flexible operations, it’s wise to have many options for carriers and different contacts of several carriers.
5. Inaccurate Transit Times
Several factors can affect transport times, including weather, traffic, and mechanical issues. Freight carriers estimate transit times. Of course, everyone would want to have their parcel delivered on time. However, you can’t control some external factors, and they’d, sometimes, impact the delivery of the goods.
If you’re aware of an upcoming shipment, schedule it as soon as possible. Consequently, customers will receive their orders promptly. If you’re scheduling a shipment, be realistic about your arrival time estimations.
This way, you can give your clients a heads up, and they won’t feel disappointed if their parcel arrives later than what you promised them. Guaranteed shipment options are available from some carriers. While they cost a little more, you can use this logistics service for customers who are particularly sensitive about delivery times.
Conclusion
Companies can avoid the above list of common shipping mistakes to improve operations and retain more loyal customers. By getting yourself familiar with these possible mistakes, you can avoid them and focus more on enhancing your shipment delivery systems. Shipping, indeed, is critical to keeping your online customers happy.
