Stay Competitive in the Holiday Rush with Smart Parcel Management
The holiday shopping season is in full swing, and busy customers expect to know when their parcel shipments will arrive, where they are throughout the process, and who to contact if there’s a problem with their order. Is your business prepared for the fast-paced, high-quality demands of your customers? What happens after the holiday storm has passed? Is your shipping department capable of auditing the holiday shipments and identifying where your parcel carrier has made mistakes, which your company is paying for?
Avoid Lost Revenue
If your company is running on a tight budget, controlling business costs is likely at the top of your running to-do list. Between the cost and time of shipping, tracking, and warehousing your products, the expense of running a retail business can run up quickly.
If you’re shipping many parcels, chances are you have a custom parcel agreement with one or more of the major parcel carriers. Those carriers are not only responsible for meeting their end of the agreement as far as pricing but also for ensuring that delivery expectations are met. Let’s say, for example, your shipments require a signature. If you send 1000 packages and 200 are delivered without obtaining a signature, the carrier is responsible. In most cases, however, businesses don’t have a good way of auditing anything other than pricing.
Every contract error on the part of the carrier is liable for recompense. The carrier isn’t going to show you their mistakes. It’s up to your shipping department to bring these errors to the carrier’s attention and demand satisfaction for their shortcomings. It can be especially prevalent during the holiday season when package volumes are high, and carriers are bringing in temporary staff to help during the busy season.
Implement an Automated Auditing Solution
Custom parcel agreements, or parcel carrier agreements, are complicated to track and audit. For example, with Amware’s ParcelRate software program, client data specific to their custom parcel agreement is inputted into the software program. The program then references the contract elements against carrier invoices. If, for example, there were 300 packages that were manifested but not shipped, the program will show this in a very simple dashboard view. It will also be able to show both long and short-term savings specific to that parcel carrier agreement.
Automating the audit process as it relates to parcel shipping can save companies millions. Not only are businesses saving actual dollars on carrier mistakes, but they are also saving massively on labor costs. A manual audit performed monthly can take several people a dozen hours or more, depending on the volume of parcel shipments. Automation frees employees to focus on their primary objectives and eliminates human error during the audit process.
Contact Amware to Learn More
Now is the perfect time to implement a parcel tracking and auditing service.
Amware is a Cleveland, Ohio-based third-party logistics company with a full suite of supply chain management services and solutions to help you run your business. Amware has helped hundreds of clients structure and manage their custom parcel agreements.