How technology can help hauliers manage customer expectations

Can technology make it easier to keep up with increasing customer expectations and improve the customer experience you deliver?

We look at how Mandata’s transport management system (TMS) can help you provide convenience and visibility to your customers, reduce your admin burden, and keep your employees and customers informed all the way.

Making it easy for your customer to place bookings

Online

Mandata’s customer portal plugs into your transport management system for a convenient way customers can place bookings with your business at any time. Bookings come straight into your TMS without you or your employees having to enter the details manually, so you can start pricing and planning their jobs quicker.

Electronic data interchange

Mandata’s software makes it possible to transfer information from your customer’s system into your own transport management system through electronic data interchange (EDI), which has the following benefits:

• It reduces duplication and manual data input even further.
• Data accuracy is preserved.
• The EDI event viewer lets you check that there are no data errors in your customer data and that files arrive complete.

Providing visibility of delivery progress during job execution

“When will my delivery arrive?”

How many times have you heard those words? If customer queries are overwhelming your traffic office, you can automate the sharing of information that customers need with Mandata’s TMS so it doesn’t add to your workload.

Keep customers informed as jobs progress

With Mandata’s transport management system, you can keep customers informed as consignments are collected and delivered. You’ll need to have a few things in place for this to happen.

You can update the status of jobs manually, but you have to remember to do it. If you rely on paperwork coming back into the office, you’ll also have a lot of paperwork to match up and scan. It all takes time. It does mean customers can see updates in the customer portal – however it relies on you manually updating the details first.

Update your systems automatically

By digitising your job update process with the Mandata Manifests app for drivers, you can receive electronic proof of delivery (ePOD). As the driver updates Manifests, ePODs update automatically in your TMS and in the customer portal, giving you peace of mind that your customers can access this information online at any time.

Automatic job progress updates can happen in different ways:

• When your drivers use the Manifests app to capture signatures on delivery and update job progress; and
• Through vehicle tracking and geofencing updates that are made as vehicles cross geofences.

Customers receive updates in various ways

Text and email notifications

A TMS with geofencing functionality can automatically send alerts to your team and your customers via email or SMS. You can set up individual alerts by customer, job type or job status, and tailor messages for different circumstances.

Customer portal

A portal is another easy way to share information with your customers. If your TMS is integrated, allowing automatic updates between the Manifests app and your TMS, customers will be able to see automatic progress and ePOD updates for each job.

Arrivals board

The Navigation app for drivers provides live turn-by-turn navigation, optimised for truck routing. It shows drivers which routes they should take as you’ve planned them. An estimated time of arrival (ETA) feeds back into the customer portal and displays on an arrivals board to keep customers informed of job progress in real time. Colour-coded options show customers at a glance whether their jobs are on time or at risk of running late.

The answer is simple

Do you want to improve the way you share information with customers to keep them in the loop? An integrated transport management system like Mandata provides a solution that will not only add value for your customers, but will also save you time, effort and money.