We live in a world in which the customer’s experience seems to be every time less important to the companies. It also seems like the larger the company, the less it cares. Well, I don’t believe that to be entirely true, I believe that the more they grow, the more that communication between the leaders at the top of the organization and the employees at the front line dealing with customers gets diluted and distorted. I am not saying that always to be the case, but I do refuse to believe that an entrepreneur, who indeed loves his business and his customers, would allow for the customer to be treated anything other than great.
I know as an entrepreneur myself, that I want every one of my customers to have the best customer experience ever. If a customer gives us the honor to choose us as his provider the least we can do is to treat him greatly. However, I also understand that the larger the company grows and the more employees it has, the more chances there are of someone delivering an experience short of great.
That is why I promised myself that at my company, the customer’s experience will always be a priority. This was after spending 40 minutes talking to a freaking robot of a financial institution, who could not only not help me, it never transferred me to someone who could. After I hung up I stood up and said to my CFO at the time: “Promise me that if we ever had automated customer service robots in the company you will personally shoot me.” (Yes, it was that frustrating.)
After all, we humans, like doing business with companies that make it easy for us to do business with them. So, even though customer satisfaction was at the top of our priorities at the time, now the customer experience is the single most important thing for us at STT Logistics Group. We want the customers to be thrilled to do business with us, we want it to be so easy that they want to keep coming back, referring their friends, and even leaving great reviews online for everyone to read. Overall, we want our customers to have peace of mind when they are transporting their loads with us.
Now keep in mind, we are in an industry that has many external factors. In the trucking business, you have to deal with delays at pick-up locations and delivery locations, weather conditions, traffic and so much more. Now add to that, we are a Freight Brokerage, which means we do not even see our customers 95% of the time, and we never come in contact with their loads. We hire a third party that handles the shipping and handling of the loads.
Some people would think it’s impossible to provide a great customer experience when so many factors are external and some depend on other companies involved. However, we have proven at STT Logistics Group that providing a great customer experience in such scenarios is possible if you are committed to it. Over 80 positive reviews per month for the last 5 months is evidence of it.
At STT Logistics Group we make sure we get the right carrier to take your load. Whether you need a hot shot, a flatbed, a beam trailer, an enclosed van or an RGN, and much more, we will find the right carrier that best suits your needs. We do this by completing a very meticulous process.
All the carriers that work with STT Logistics Group undergo a background check, where we verify their driving history to look for accidents and how often they service their trucks as well as being aware of how they perform on the FMCSA’s evaluations. We also get added as a certificate holder on the carrier’s insurance and we also verify the insurance to make sure it has the proper liability to cover the load being transported. All this should be routine for any freight brokerage to say the least.
However, we don’t stop there. We have over 11,477 trusted carrier companies affiliated with us which range from a wide variety of owner-operators with as little as one truck to some of the largest trucking companies in the nation with fleets that exceed the thousands of trucks as well as railroad transportation providers, airlines and shipping lines. These 11,477 trusted trucking companies all have one thing in common, they have helped us in delivering a great customer experience to our customers. Any trucking company that falls short of that gets marked in our system and is not used again in the future.
A customer experience has to be from beginning to end a great customer experience. That is why we make sure the carrier sends pictures of the load once it is on the trailer so that the customer can see his load is safely on its way.
A customer experience team will contact the pickup location to make sure everything went well with the driver and that he was courteous. They will do the same at the delivery location. This is how we can ensure our carriers maintain a high standard of customer service. If the shipper, meaning our customer, was not at the delivery location, a customer experience specialist will contact him to make sure the overall process went well and that he is happy, and there and then, we will also ask for the customer to leave a review online for us.
The customer experience specialist will get a hold of the customer at the beginning of the process as well to make herself or himself available in case the customer can’t get a hold of their main point of contact at any given time. We will usually provide a phone number for a dispatcher or a supervisor as well, to ensure each customer has 2-3 different points of contact to make communication fast and efficient.
To add to that, we have specialists who handle any type of load, whether you are shipping equipment, transporting machinery, or moving pallets we have the right solutions for you. We can transport personal vehicles as well as get the largest of cranes delivered safely to its final destination. We can get your produce to the packing facilities and then to the supermarkets faster than anybody else can. If you need a container at a warehouse or delivered at the port, we’ve got you. And if you need your load shipped overseas, we have you covered.
Our wide variety of services is not something that happened by chance. We realized that many customers had to deal with different providers when it came to transporting different kinds of loads, and in some cases deal with many providers just to move one shipment. And in our commitment to serving our customers with greatness, we’ve incorporated all the services our customers need. That is how we became THE one-stop-shop for all your logistics needs.
Our network of providers includes mechanics, storage facilities, towing companies, crane services, permits for oversize equipment, international shipping, and customs brokers, you name the problem, we have the solution.
Do you think my statements are too bold? we don’t just talk the talk, we walk the walk. Give us a call at +1(888)-884-0608 and let one of our agents prove to you what we can do.
Andre Corbert
CEO- STT Logistics Group
