The Success of Your Business Hinges on Reliable Transportation and the 3PL that Delivers It

It is truly a great time to be a shipper. Rates are low and capacity is plentiful. The opportunities to find lower shipping rates on the spot market have many shippers straying from their contracts and the higher rates they’d negotiated with carriers way back when. Why wouldn’t they?

Because lower rates mean less reliable service.

There’s always a trade-off between price and reliable service—and the cost of unreliable transportation is usually more than shippers bargained for.

Lowest price strategies that sacrifice reliability are a mistake

With reliable transportation partners, you don’t have to wonder if your shipment will arrive on-time, in-full and damage-free. But with low-cost carriers, you always will. So you will always put your smooth-operating supply chain and business at risk.

Transportation affects every aspect of the supply chain. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. And when your shipments are late, missed or damaged, your downstream operations will be impacted and your costs will be affected.

The ramifications of unreliable transportation aren’t always boldface, but they’re there. What’s not always apparent is that your transportation partners’ reliability ultimately determines your ability to provide reliable service to your own customers.

There are so many ways that reliable delivery matters for companies of every size and virtually every industry that it’s hard to imagine why any shipper would ever throw in with a carrier picked purely for price.  

Why reliable transportation matters to your business

There are more than a few reasons that reliable transportation matters to your business:

Satisfied customers or lost business?

Reliable delivery reflects well on your brand, builds customer loyalty, and encourages additional business. Conversely, it’s on you when your shipment is botched. You may have hired out the transportation, but customers won’t assign blame separately. And in today’s world, you can assume B2B buyers to be just as ruthless as B2C buyers when it comes to switching brands because of bad delivery experiences.

Vendor confidence

Your reputation for reliable transportation with vendors and players throughout your supply chain matters too. A record of meeting appointment windows and dropping trailers where you’re supposed wins respect with terminal managers, lumpers, and forklift operators. That makes them more likely to load you quickly and not make your driver wait. (The benefits of reliability come back to you.)

Optimal production planning

When your transportation is reliable, you can confidently plan production, knowing raw materials will be there on time. Just-in-time supply chains are possible when you know your trucks will be punctual. With transportation you trust to be on time, you can run a tight schedule that maximizes the uptime of your assembly lines. Without that certainty, timelines have to be hedged, creating waste and reduced output.

Optimal resource planning

The ability to plan labor, warehousing, and outbound transportation accurately depends on inbound materials or merchandise being there when it’s supposed to be. When deliveries arrive as scheduled, you can schedule workers and avoid idle time—or overtime. You can ensure warehouse space is available or drivers are ready-and-waiting when you need them.

Confidence to expand

When you know you can rely on your transportation, it can energize your business development efforts. Without wondering whether your truckers can and will deliver, you can confidently expand territory, seize stretch opportunities, and close deals.

Peace of mind from visibility

The ability to confirm pick up, location, and ETA frees shippers to focus on bigger and better things. When carriers don’t provide reliable visibility, it puts the onus on shippers to call or email and often yields a response that’s late and inaccurate.

Builds retail business

Big retailers often have strict routing guide requirements for on-time delivery. When you are late, there can be stiff chargebacks. But when you’re on time, it builds your scorecard and retailers love working with manufacturers they can depend on. So much so that good scorecard performance is an excellent way to grow business and garner prime shelf positions in stores.

Control inventory levels

Reliable transportation helps ensure your inventory is kept at the right level to avoid stockouts or overstocking. This strategy enables sales while freeing cash from being tied up in inventory or warehouse space. There can be tremendous cost savings, but only when you can depend on shipments to arrive on time.

Cost-effective mode selection

If a shipment involves multiple legs such as port drayage to DC, DC to fulfillment center, or fulfillment center to home delivery, reliable transportation enables the most cost-effective service to be selected for every leg. When inbound is on schedule, the option to ship intermodal may be an option. On the other hand, if transportation early in the supply chain is unreliable, shippers may have to make up for lost time by paying for FTL or resorting to expedited shipping.

Safety in unsafe times

Reliable transportation provided by carriers who take precautions to avoid freight fraud is especially important today. 3PLs like WSI have standards and procedures in place to safeguard freight. Without a leading-edge framework for freight fraud prevention in place, shippers increasingly put their loads at risk.

Transportation reliability needs to extend beyond the ride

Dock-to-dock reliability is critical, but it’s not the only area where reliability can have a major impact on your business. It’s no good if a transportation provider excels in one area and fails in all the others.

Reliability needs to start even before the first mile and extend past the last mile. That means reliable tender acceptance, booking and confirmations as well as accurate billing and following up after the load is delivered.

A good 3PL understands this. Whether you need to supply a just-in-time plant or deliver to a DC to meet a must arrive by date, they will be your ally in by delivering the same reliability to you that you provide to your own customers.

What to look for in a 3PL that will be a reliable partner

A reliable partner should exemplify several key characteristics, tools, and offerings, including:

Capability

If a transportation provider doesn’t have what it takes to do the job, they won’t do the job. That includes having capacity in the form of carrier relationships, specifically in the lanes you need. If you require special handling or you’re in a unique industry, like paper transport or chemical hauling, the carrier needs to demonstrate they have experience. To reliably serve its customers, WSI has a network of over 75,000 carriers that haul everything from fresh produce and paper to pharmaceuticals and flatbed loads on all major lanes and many remote roadways.

Processes

Having proven processes already in place helps support reliable outcomes. For example, a system for vetting carriers for skills, compliance, safety record, and reputation ensures your driver is qualified to haul your load. In addition, protocols for confirming every detail and tracking every milestone leave nothing to assumption, avoid confusion, and help prevent anything from falling through the cracks.

Communication

To ensure reliability, there has to be strong communication between yourself and your carrier, your carrier, and their driver, and your carrier and the receiver. Reliable, real-time updates provide shippers with great advantages in planning and providing customer service. Maintaining constant communication can also enable quick changes in anticipation of disruptions. Timely updates about delays are also crucial so shippers can inform their own customers, adjust production, and minimize any costs related to the delay.

Technology

A 3PL’s TMS can provide route and load optimization that supports efficient, reliable runs. Real-time tracking supports accurate ETAs. Also, a 3PL’s use of automated EDI can eliminate manual errors that lead to mix-ups and delays on shipments.

Predictive Analytics

The best 3PLs are using AI and machine learning to boost transportation reliability. By analyzing TMS data, historical trends, and external information, 3PLs optimize routes, anticipate capacity needs, manage inventories, and address potential disruptions to improve transportation reliability.

Relationships

A 3PL’s well-established carrier relationships are a recipe for reliability. Familiarity supports success. Additionally, a 3PL’s existing relationships with retailers can provide advantages to shippers. A 3PL’s ability to call someone to extend an appointment window or help a driver who’s being detained at the loading dock can help you stay on schedule and avoid added costs from chargebacks and detention.

Accountability

Your safeguard of reliable transportation is a 3PL that is involved before, during and after your shipment. A partner that delivers reliably gets it right from the onset. They’ll check the load information for accuracy. They’ll confirm with the carrier after booking. They’ll track throughout the shipment, confirm once it arrives, and keep you informed throughout. Lastly, they’ll follow-up after delivery and send an accurate invoice that doesn’t waste your team’s time.

Measurement

According to WSI Sales Manager, Scott Van Zeeland, most recent memory of mistakes is a common and misguided method of gauging a carrier’s reliability. KPIs provide the ultimate source of truth a shipper needs to make a good decision. Here are a few numbers to look into:

• On-time performance: 95% is an industry standard for reliable carriers
• Damage claims: A damage claims rate below 1% is essential (Cargoson)
• Tender acceptance: Look for tender acceptance as close to 100% as possible
• Invoice accuracy: An accuracy rate of 98-100% is a good indicator of reliability (Ascend)
• Tracking compliance: You want 100% of carriers providing tracking

A 3PL that values reliability is a valuable asset

The reliability of your transportation has a huge hand in the efficiency of your supply chain and the satisfaction of your customers.

The reality is that transportation reliability is mostly in the hands of the partners you use. Choose well—their ability to deliver predictable success is invaluable to you—especially with things as unpredictable as they are today.

Meet with our team of experts to discuss the areas of your supply chain that could use a little more reliability.