Good customer service is the lifeblood of a logistics business.  It’s all about retaining your customers and sending them away happy – happy enough to pass positive feedback about your company to others.  The essence of customer service in logistics is forming a relationship that customers want to sustain over time.

How do you go about forming such a relationship?  By remembering the one true secret to good customer service:  you will be judged by WHAT YOU DO, not WHAT YOU SAY.

Here are some simple tips for maintaining good customer service in your daily interactions.

1.    Answer your phone.  When customers call, they want to know you are there and ready to help with regular or urgent requests.

2.    Don’t make a promise unless you plan to keep it.  Reliability is one of the key attributes to a good relationship and good customer service in logistics.   Think before you make a promise. 

3.    Listen.  This is a lost skill.  Nothing is more exasperating to a customer than communicating a requirement, then discovering that no one has been paying attention.  Important issues should be documented and monitored until action has been taken.

4.    Deal with complaints.  No one likes to hear complaints, but how you deal with these complaints may be your best opportunity to demonstrate great logistics customer service.  Customers appreciate prompt action to address problem issues.   

5.    Train.  Too many companies assume that good customer service is common sense and that staff instinctively understand how to deliver it.  Not necessarily.  Invest the time to explain your expectations and desired behaviors. 

6.    Take the extra step.  Whatever that extra step is.  Customers notice when you go “above and beyond” and will tell others when you do. 

Logistics management has become a sophisticated discipline, requiring smart people, engineered processes and advanced technology.  But, in the end, customers will judge you on how well you handle simple, day-to-day interactions.  Third party logistics is a customer service business, and great customer service must be a core competency. 

Interested in learning more about Weber Logistics solutions?  Contact Weber Logistics today.