Customer service’s weight in overall product quality is growing. While as a company, you try your hardest to provide excellent service by hiring the most professional employees, cooperating with leading suppliers and designing the absolute best working methods. Some incidents may put that superb service in jeopardy with little chance to prevent them from occurring.
Which parameters check the “superb service” boxes?
Time:
Benjamin Franklin, who was the first United States Postmaster General, stated that “Time Is Money”.
Customers often plan when purchasing goods. They rely on the time frame announced and expect the item to be delivered according to that frame. Every deviation from that has the potential to cause damage and loses. Therefore a supplier, whether a producer or a forwarder, must strive to meet time goals.
Cost:
One can purchase from every point across the world, consequencing to “price” being the sole parameter for choosing a supplier or product. A product could be any service along the path: the product itself, the shipping costs, the post-purchase service, the spare parts costs, etc. some being of more importance and others being of less significance for a specific customer.
Personal service:
Research shows that as the world progresses technologically, we have less eye to eye contact hours. We prefer online chats to calls, gaming to playing football, and Netflixing to going to the movies. Having said that, something about personal human service seems (for now) irreplaceable, and for some customers, if no personal service is available, the transaction will not happen. Now, imagine checking all those boxes and still being unable to provide an excellent service due to reason originating from Force majeure or import-export related issues.
Forbidden goods:
Some states and countries determine which goods are eligible for import and which are prohibited. Items imported to countries in which they are forbidden goods, will not cross the borders. Dangerous Whereas, drugs are banned in all countries, yet, the chemicals used to hide the drugs, or to produce them, might be allowed in most of them.
Rules and regulations:
Customs clearance process may vary from country to country, each having its rules and regulation. Medical devices import requires the ministry of health authorization, weights and scales may request the department of commerce certificate and in some countries, the same goods may be imported with no exceptional steps taken. Knowing the rules and regulations of the country of destination and preparing the relevant certificate can save time, money and unnecessary headaches.
Classification/misclassification:
HS codes system was invented to harmonize the import-export procedure. Nonetheless, it is not problem-free since many variants affect the procedure. Human-based labor has its benefits: common sense, learning curve, experience, etc. , but it also has its downsides: ware, human errors and brain drain form companies. One classifier would give an HS code which another classifier will not, according to their interpretation of the goods and its components and ingredients. For example, chemicals as part of different compounds have different HS codes. Also, seeds have different HS codes for planting ones and another for the edible version. Using AI classification systems will minimize errors and raise efficiency. HS codes misclassification could not only slow customs clearance, but it could also impose the wrong amount of tax on a shipment, influencing the transaction worthwhileness.
Paperwork:
Whenever goods await documentation at ports, it is terrible news. There is an unwritten rule, Pasta should never wait for sauce, Sauce should wait for the pasta. Goods and paperwork should work just the same: paperwork awaits goods, bever the other way around. In order for that to happen, one should have every document ready for use ahead of time and at the tip of their finger: Invoices, airway bills, COOs for customs, post, parcel, courier and freight use. However, having the paperwork available is not everything. In some cases transferring data from the pre-alert to the ERP ends in having mistakes as a result of mistyping or missing information. unclear or missing data is a massive reason for shipments delay and should be avoided as much as possible.
