Shipping Retention in Kuwait

Carol Smalley
Managing Editor, CRMGuru
Member

Posted 04-Nov-2003 08:13 AM
Posted by Carol Smalley (Editor) on behalf of Sunil Abraham [daniel_kuwait@yahoo.co.in]

Dear Sir,

I am working for a shipping company in Kuwait and seeking your help for the following matter. Shipping is all to do with services and often the slightest mistake of not passing the information of shipment (eg. shipment in transit report) causes a big hue and cry. I have often faced this problem in real time, and this again is due to lack of information from our agents at origin (foreign land). I have had cases where I had to go underground for several days until I got a message from my agent about the actual status of shipment. But then it's too late to advise the customer about the same. This causes the rift and I hate this process. I always believed in servicing the client and things like this—which is again not our mistake—gets on my nerve. I have often let my agents know about the problems I face, and all they have to do is give false assurances. What do you think can resolve this issue? Any response would be highly appreciated.

Best regards,

Sunil Abraham
Business Development Executive

Carol Parenzan Smalley
Managing Editor
www.CRMGuru.com
carol@CRMGuru.com

Chris K
Member

Posted 06-Nov-2003 04:23 PM
Hi there

I believe your first task is that of recognising the issues at hand, getting them down on paper and wrapper this with some process flow diagramming. You really need a grasp of your business in this sence I believe to understand what is "current practice", and this will also highlight your key
customer touch points.

Its hard to guage from your post the real issues you are facing, but mapping your process flows may re-establish the environment you are working in (your value network), and how information passes between these points. This may provide some quick BPR opporunities for you to alleviate your pains in the short term.

I would recommend, where possible, that you do this collaboratively with others in your port, dont exclude people like the foreman, customs, your service providers, billing clerks. Plan this approach carefully with some real timelines and of course outcome focused.

From here, you can get a solid grasp of the costs/issues in the port in terms of service provision, monitoring of, issues in process (delay/error/efficiency of) and how these relate to revenue steams and customer experiences (both of the agents, service providers, govt etc).

As a side note, do you directly compete with other "local" ports?

In the process above, ask yourself these questions
a) are there issues with berth bookings / calandering?
b) are there issues with service provision to incoming ships?
c) can you wrap turn around times and costs with these, do you have a baseline to measure from?
d) do you really understand your customer touchpoints, their issues and the
cultural boundries you need to work around/within?

there are many other issues, but its a start Smile

All these lead to plans for CRM building and process refinement through buy in and commitment at the executive level.

Cheers

Ck
www.chriskempster.com

Niko
Member

Posted 07-Nov-2003 01:53 AM
Hi Sunil,

Having had a some exposure in the past with the shipping industry, I'd say that the problems you are faced with are typical of the problems other shipping agents and the whole industry chain has globaly.

If I may say so, the problems stem from the fact that there are too many independent agents, with very little infrastructure (sometimes a fax and nothing more), too many independent shipping companies, and very long chains of small time, IT poor, unconnected intermediaries.

Addressing these problems, which seem to be ingrained and perpetuating in this industry, maybe a bigger task than one person can take on his/her own. Sometimes (most of the times), the required paperwork is not even known in advance till the cargo hits the Customs and Excise holding area at the arrival port! How is this for a difficult nut to crack?

I would suggest that, depending on where you stand on the value chain, as a first step, try to deal with multinational shipping agents that reduce the chain from the sender to you.

Secondly, try to sell them the idea of systems integration between their systems and yours, so that your customer can benefit from fresh, uptodate information. Try to ascertain if they already provide such information on their website for their customers/agents, so you can incorporate this into your information content towards your customer. You may also want to find out if the Customs and Excise or other goverment bodies that you are dealing with, provide such information online, or allow 3rd party systems integration to approved companies. It will certainly be worth-while for you to make a 'customer friently' version of this Goverment related information to your customers.

Finaly, take a hard look at your systems, and see if you can improve anything that would allow you to learn from past patterns and predict information gathering and desimination requirements as well as schedules etc.

Kind Regards,

Niko