7 Keys to an Exceptional Experience with your Freight Broker

An exceptional customer experience with a freight broker is about more than just pleasant customer service. The CX you appreciate as a consumer—like smooth apps or free shipping—is often a nice-to-have convenience.  Reliable communication, on-time deliveries, and proactive support aren’t just perks; they’re essential for keeping operations on track and meeting business demands.

In this post, WSI invites readers to take a look at important considerations for ensuring the CX you’re receiving is supporting the success of your business.    

Your Customers Demand a Great CX

It doesn’t matter how well your buyer’s shopping and ordering process went if your delivery is late, difficult, or arrives damaged. Shipping screwups can ruin an otherwise perfect CX. When shipping goes awry, 85% of consumers don’t return. Considering the plethora of sellers out there and how easy it is to switch brands, you can’t expect business buyers to behave any differently.  

Your transportation providers have a lot of influence over the CX you provide. A carrier or freight broker that is responsive, committed, and capable, is an asset to your business and ultimately to your own buyers. Shipment visibility is an important example of this. The tracking you can provide to your buyers depends on the information your transportation partner provides.  

In a report released by Accenture, buyers ranked “speedy and efficient service response” as the 4th most important quality of service providers—and equally as important as “value for money.”  

Whether you need an ETA update, fast rate quote, or important document, you need a partner that consistently delivers great customer service. Your business depends on it.   

7 Musts for Ensuring You Get the Best CX from your Freight Broker 

 1 – Set Your Transportation Partner Up For Success 

With any transportation partner, you play a role in determining the experience you have. Choose a good freight broker or carrier and give them good information, and you’ll be set up to have a smooth and mistake-free experience.  

Clear and accurate load and delivery details promote on-time pick-up and delivery. They also protect you from assessorial charges related to unexpected services provided or charges related to delays or mix-ups. Here are the basics to provide: 

• Weight of the shipment
• Value of the freight 
• Information regarding pick up 
• Description of the items shipping 
• Freight classification for less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments 
• Shipment destination 
• Special handling instructions 

 2 – Check Transportation Providers’ Technology  

Whether or not you receive excellent customer service depends on more than the human touch. Service providers’ failure to marry technology and human interaction is one of business buyers’ biggest frustrations today, according to Accenture.  

If your carrier or freight broker isn’t up to speed technologically, they simply can’t provide the fastest response, most accurate data, best rates and clearest answer to your queries. Having the latest is important. Here’s what to look for in a partner: 

• Transportation management system (TMS): A TMS enables them to track and trace your freight in real-time and access the best LTL rate and service from multiple sources in the moment. 
• Customer Portal: An online platform where you can price, book, and check on loads without calling or emailing a rep. When you need service, you need service. The option to self-serve enables you to get an answer or solve a problem without delay.
• AI Tools: AI provides transportation partners with benefits that strongly influence the quality of a shipper’s CX. For example,e WSI’s tool for planning, estimating and booking Full truckload (FTL) freight is amazingly fast and thorough. “It’s the only tool of its kind right now because it’s AI-based and it takes both market data and our actual carrier data to come up with pricing we can use when negotiating with our network. We’re finding it to be very accurate,” says Kelley Stiles, Director of Transportation at WSI. 
• Advanced Integrations: Technology provides a competitive advantage in controlling costs, enhancing service, and ensuring accuracy when it comes to B2B or B2C order fulfillment. To optimize your ERP or other systems, your transportation provider needs to be able to integrate seamlessly. Electronic data interchange (EDI) is a key way of exchanging information for excellent CX. Working with a 3PL freight broker like WSI enables a fully integrated experience by connecting e-commerce customers’ order management system (OMS) and ERP with WSI’s warehouse management (WMS), TMS, and parcel shipping software.  

Technology and IT support is critical to successful CX. Be sure and ask a prospective transportation partner for their help desk process and policies.  

3 – Paperwork Complexity Shouldn’t Be Part of the Experience

One of the greatest values of working with a transportation partner is having a second set of eyes and ready resources when providing shipping information or completing paperwork. Customer service that goes over and above in this area saves shippers time and costs.  

Shipping isn’t every manufacturer’s domain. Managing the details and making sense of freight classifications, DIM weight, and retailers’ routing guides can be a major time waste.  

An experienced partner is familiar with the standard shipping documents like the bill of lading, commercial invoice, and freight bill—so you don’t need to be. Good thing. Mistakes in filling out, providing or placement of documents can cost you.  

List the wrong DIM weight or freight classification and you could pay more for shipping than you should. Fail to specify a service, like the need for liftgate service, and you could receive unexpected assessorial charges. Especially with large retailers, documentation mistakes can bring costly chargebacks.  

 4 – A Partner’s Expertise Helps Ensure Your Positive CX 

Helping shippers navigate the paperwork is only one way transportation partners provide added value. Their experience helps you to provide agile shipping solutions that serve your end customers with great CX. They can also steer you to save money on transportation and realize efficiencies in your supply chain.  

An experienced partner’s familiarity with retailer’s routing guides saves you from having to learn through experience. Their understanding of how on-time requirements vary among buyers and how to manage appointment scheduling can save you from retailers’ chargebacks, assessorial charges for detention or re-delivery, and the loss of future orders.  

Sharing experience is part of the service that adds value and makes for a great CX. That extends to a transportation partner applying their insight to vet qualified drivers. Checking drivers’ records and experience on specific lanes or hauling specific commodities takes time and expertise. It pays when it comes to ensuring your shipment arrives on time and in full.  

5 – An Overcommunication Strategy Is the Best Policy

When it comes to information regarding your shipment’s whereabouts, more is better. The more you know, the better you can plan production, avoid delays, and keep your own customers informed of where their orders are. 

An excellent CX provides you with visibility into your freight that’s as close to Amazon-like as possible. Providing transparency into your shipment is a product of a partner’s TMS and persistence. While LTL freight’s location can be reported in real-time, FTL shipments often require carriers or freight brokers to be more proactive when drivers can’t be tracked by GPS.  

WSI has regular check-ins with truckload drivers in order to provide daily reports to customers. “We’re extremely involved and monitoring loads from start to finish,” explains WSI’s Kelley Stiles “We’re constantly in communication with the carriers and asking for updates. We do the scheduling of the appointments on both ends, and then we’re checking in multiple times a day for however long the haul is.” 

Shipment visibility is only one facet of communication that leads to great CX. The basics make all the difference. It includes responsiveness to rate requests, onboarding needs, problems en route, complaints, and all queries. Being proactive is also important. You need to know an accurate ETA as well as information about delays. With good communication, you can plan better.  

 6 – Follow-Through Needs to Be Next-Level 

Time savings is a common benefit of great customer service. Knowing your shipment will be taken care of and not having to schedule a to-do, find contact information, and reach out repeatedly, saves time and mental load.  

Follow-up for you is the hallmark of a committed carrier or freight broker who has your best interest in mind. It enables you to manage by exception so you can turn your attention to other priorities.  

Follow-up has reached new levels of complexity today because of the sheer number of events that can be monitored through technology. Your transportation partner’s ability to make sense of massive amounts of data, action it, and use it to monitor and improve performance is invaluable.  

In a sense, outstanding CX today entails making micro follow-ups that can be used to create supply chain efficiencies that benefit shippers.  

 7 – Customer Experience Is an Infinite Loop 

A shipment that ends with invoice hassles and unanswered billing queries is a bad customer experience. You want to be supported before, during, and after your shipment. Transportation partners who offer great customer service know that CX is all-inclusive from rate request to invoice.  

Customer service stars also get that they can provide invaluable support in settling claims. A freight broker’s willingness to provide details and documentation is invaluable but not always a given. WSI stays involved. “If it’s a load that we arrange, the claim will come to us and then we’ll work with the carrier to investigate or do whatever we can to help the shipper get reimbursed when it’s not their fault,” Kelley says.  

After asking a potential carrier for their claims numbers, it pays to ask how they advocate for you to help you get a claim settled.  

Make CX Your Priority 

Well-supported and consistent CX from your transportation partner is an asset that helps you build your business and benefits your bottom-line profits.  

It pays to look beyond the rate quote to the value of a great customer experience start to finish and the customer service that you receive at every step.  

 It can save you in more than one way. See for yourself on your next load.