To become a preferred shipper requires not just a mindset shift, but also organizational agility and the capacity to be a change agent in the face of traditional ways of operating. And, having a positive relationship with your LSPs is crucial to the success of an organization. 

Here are 6 ways you can build your relationship with your LSPs 

1. Giving continuous feedback to your LSPs to achieve better OTIF rates  

On-time and in-full delivery is critical to success and a metric that shippers consider when evaluating partnerships with LSPs of all sizes. Despite its relevance, many transport companies, regardless of complexity, have struggled to satisfy these objectives on a continual basis.

Accurately tracking and assessing transportation metrics is a critical component of managing the performance of your supply chain. You can identify how to increase OTIF performance and where your logistics operation needs to be tweaked by analyzing key metrics. 

Shippers can give feedback and reviews to their LSPs and iterate a better solution, maintaining a relationship. 

2. Provide accurate and timely forecasts to the LSPs 

Having precise information is important for LSPs throughout the freight procurement process. You must provide freight vehicle type in addition to lane and tonnage data. This information enables LSPS to plan effectively for locations, specific vehicle types, and seasonal fluctuations in volume. 

While most conversations happen over the phone, WhatsApp or emails. It is time-consuming, tedious and no proper records leading to lower fulfillment rate. 

With a freight procurement platform, you can have multiple conversations within the platform and are well-documented so that there is business continuity even if the logistics coordinator has taken a vacation. 

3. Visibility into the shipment 

This helps Shippers to keep a track of their SLAs and reduce penalties. Shippers can intervene if any problems arise and actively avoid late delivery if all the stakeholders are kept up to date on activities during shipment. With a visibility platform, all stakeholders get end-to-end visibility for their trips and this builds trust and reliability. 

4. ePODs to avoid disputes 

Proof-of-Delivery creates a record of a delivery as part of the invoicing process, generates a commercial record of the delivery process, and captures any discrepancies in the delivery. There are many advantages with an electronic POD, you can get real-time delivery status of unloaded goods (material-wise, report damages at SKU, photo/video proofs for insurance claims), record delivery timestamps and location into your CRM, real-time dispute resolution, and faster payment to LSPs. It’s a win-win for both parties. 

5. On-time payments

Shippers should pay their freight bills on time and correctly in order to become “shippers of choice” due to limitations in the availability of vehicles. As a result, shippers can better secure vehicles and transport more effectively. 

Currently, the freight payment process takes a lot of time because its 

• A hassle to process non-standardized invoices by different LSPs, raised on multiple platforms
• Invoices can be processed only after POD is received and verified
• Difficult to validate if extra charges (e.g., Toll) have been added by LSP in its invoice claims
• Difficulty in LR-DO reconciliation as it may exists on different systems, thereby increasing manual processing and reconciliation

To address these challenges, Shippers need a unified solution to standardize payment reconciliation.  Freight Tiger’s Accounts Payable Reconciliation (APR) module enables transporters to invoice more quickly and accurately. 

Request for product brochure to learn more about the module. 

6. Capitalizing on the digital freight network for higher freight fulfilments and optimized costs

With shippers wanting to automate and digitize their freight procurement process, they are now focussed on accessing more transporters for their different routes. Shippers leverage digital freight network models to efficiently connect with LSPs for higher fulfilments and close to real-time competitive rates. Shippers can also leverage the other shipper’s LSP network for origin-destination pairing. 

While at the same time, LSPs leverage the freight network to support shippers on different routes, resulting in an increase in business, improving vehicle availability and reducing empty miles. 

Download case study on Freight Tiger optimizing internal networks to build efficiency and reduce freight costs.

Schedule a demo to learn more about Freight Tiger TMS.