Recent research by PwC showed that companies who prioritize customer experience have up to a 25% reduction in costs compared to those that don’t. Many of these companies leverage self-serve options, leading to higher first-contact resolution rates from customers with issues. The highest performing companies even grew their revenue by 5-10% lead by a higher customer retention and loyalty rate and the ability to charge more expensive premiums.
So, how can transport and logistics companies leverage this knowledge to offer a better customer experience? Read on to get our top tips to do just that.
Improving customer experience in transport & logistics
Typically an exceptional customer experience starts with prospective customers contacting a business and quickly receiving a quote, which is then followed by an efficient onboarding process. When all cylinders are firing, a great customer experience can be defined by quick responses to inquiries, fast support resolutions, and a convenient billing process.
How can you offer this to your customers? Here are the top things you need to focus on:
1. Speed: Be easily accessible and solve problems quickly
Today’s customers expect convenience, which is one of the key factors in evaluating the customer experience. So ensuring your business is meeting your customers where they already are is crucial. Here are some ways you can boost accessibility:
- Build an intuitive website
- Provide a user-friendly and searchable knowledge base
- Allow customers to easily track shipment, refund, complaint, or claims status.
- Keep consistent support hours available for customers
Customers also place high stock in quick problem resolution and can often become easily frustrated if issues aren’t solved or it takes too long for a response. Empower customers to easily reach out and provide information directly to your support team, so they can get access to help quickly.
As for your internal team, allow them to easily access centralized customer data and resources needed to close support cases, so they can provide the most seamless experience possible.
2. Enable self-serve options
According to our recent customer survey, retaining control over their own questions is the sixth most important factor for great customer service. This could be owing to the pandemic-era during which customers were forced to rely on and use self-service options, or may be reflective of our increasingly impatient consumers – either way, offering self-service options should be a business priority.
Incorporate self-service options by offering:
- A product knowledge base – fill it with blogs written by your subject matter experts, relevant webinars, quick user guides, and “how-to” videos
- FAQs – house all of your frequently asked questions and relevant answers with links to other helpful resources
- Chatbots – a bot can easily handle the more repetitive questions and even service customers who inquire out of business hours
- A community forum – your customers can come together virtually to share insights and help each other get the most out of your solution
- Dedicated technology – if you find that many customers are requesting the same solutions (ex: online billing), you may consider adding that to your tech stack for an even more seamless experience
3. Meet customers where they are
Modern consumers expect and appreciate having multiple channels on which they can engage with businesses, however, 18% of businesses globally still offer only one contact channel. Give your customers more autonomy by offering a variety of mediums with which to contact you and allow them to choose which is the most convenient for their life.
You will often have customers who move between channels, so you should be prepared with a multichannel communication strategy to ensure a consistent brand experience no matter on which platform your customers are connecting with you.
Leverage SMS messaging to excel in customer experience
Changing market conditions can make it difficult for transportation and logistics companies to fulfill customer expectations 100% of the time, which can make *enhancing the customer experience* seem like it may be out of reach. But providing an excellent customer experience often just means keeping your customers in the loop and allowing them to easily connect with you.
That’s why SMS messaging is a critical component of any multi-channel strategy, allowing you to take advantage of high engagement rates (up to 98% open rate and 45% response rate) to keep your customers up-to-date and confident in your services.
Want to learn more about how SMS messaging can help your business? Check out our Transport and Logistics page for more use cases.
Julia Applegate
Based in Charleston, SC Julia is a Demand Generation Marketing Manager with 6 years of experience in B2B technology businesses and an emphasis on growth and demand generation marketing. Julia is passionate about balancing data-driven marketing with creative campaigns and bringing agile methodology to new companies.