Price Isn't Everything With LTL Carriers

For many small businesses looking for a new LTL carrier, price is just one of many factors that go into the decision-making process. Like many business partnerships, the relationship between carrier and client is the heart of the entire transaction and may explain why the price isn’t everything when it comes to LTL.

Pricing & Value

While some customers don’t use price as their only metric, many still consider price the main factor in their decision-making process. If a carrier has excellent technical features and high-quality customer service, a customer may be willing to invest a bit more.

On the other hand, a small business owner may be willing to forgo the technology features if the LTL carrier has an excellent reputation and white glove customer service. The majority of customers it seems, however, are looking for carriers that can offer a combination of the three – fair pricing, quality technology, and sound customer service.

Is Quality Customer Service More Important Than Price?

There are few customers who will stick around through a truly bad customer service experience. A poorly managed claim or lost shipment can mean huge losses for small businesses, a risk few would be willing to take.

Quality customer service starts with a solid technology foundation. Fast and accurate tracking information, integrated claims resolution, and up-to-the-minute management are all things small business owners expect from their LTL carrier.

But at the end of the day technology isn’t always perfect and things do go wrong. So there’s no substitute for a friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable expert available to answer questions when necessary. Unfortunately, as demand for LTL increases many carriers are sacrificing customer service to simply fill the order.

LTL Carrier Technology Features

Technology is changing the way people do business. With the rise of eCommerce, and people finding new ways to use the internet to get products into the hands of consumers, LTL shipping has had to keep up with a steady stream of demands for integrative technology features. Most LTL carriers are offering customers web-based ordering platforms to request quotes and submit orders but customers are limited to only that carrier’s rate.

A 3PL Offers the Best of All Worlds

Put plainly, LTL carriers offer customers a one-to-one relationship. Clients with high shipping volumes likely receive favorable LTL rates but in today’s high-demand, low-capacity environment, working with a single carrier doesn’t guarantee shipment delivery or the quality of customer service. A 3PL like Amware can offer its customers LTL rates from hundreds of carriers, not just one. Additionally, the team at Amware handles the management of LTL and FTL shipments for clients, managing all the issues that accompany freight shipping on the client’s behalf.

What’s more, unlike a traditional brokerage service, Amware has a fleet of asset-based trucks. Because of this Amware can offer clients expedited and guaranteed truckload shipping.

Rather than depending on a single LTL carrier for your shipping needs, try Amware’s transportation management system (Amrate) and compare rates from hundreds of carriers. What’s more, if you have existing carrier relationships, you can load your preferred rates from those carriers into the Amrate platform. So use your rates or ours and start saving 30% or more annually on LTL.