Customer service is a pillar in many industries, including freight and shipping. If you want your customers to keep coming back for more—and spread the word to their colleagues—investing in your customer service can go a long way.

Whether you’re interacting with customers during ordering or ensuring accurate delivery times, your company should make customer service a bigger focus.

When is customer service most important?

There are three main areas when offering great customer service is most important:

• Interacting with customers during ordering: When someone calls to place a shipping order, your main job is to get all the necessary information, reassure them that they’re in good hands and give them an accurate estimate.
• During the delivery: Find out how the customer wants shipping updates, and do your best to provide them. Whether they want hourly updates or they only need to be informed upon pending delivery, each customer will have different communication needs.
• Post-delivery evaluation: Finally, make sure to check in with your clients about how the service went. Get feedback on what worked and what you can do better next time.

Ways to offer better customer service

Here are five ways you can improve your customer service:

• Concentrate on retaining existing customers: Instead of trying to lure in new customers, focus on how you can keep your existing customers around longer. Get to know their quirks and special needs, and then tailor your customer service to them.
• Be accessible to your customers: Whether you have 24/7 dispatch or a speedy support ticket system, it’s important that customers can get in touch with you whenever they have questions.
• Add incentives for customers: Another way to keep customers coming back is to offer incentives for shipping through your business. This could be a discount on certain freight volumes or frequencies, complimentary extra services or other ways to make your customer’s experience a better one.
• Make the most of your industry experience: The longer you’ve been in the shipping and freight industry, the better you’ll be able to handle each customer’s unique challenges and needs. Keep yourself informed on the state of the industry, as well as on new developments and technology that could make your tasks easier.
• Focus on employee training: Finally, make sure that your employees are trained early and often. The shipping and freight industry has changed rapidly during the last few years, and there’s a new development every day. Make sure that your employees are trained every time a new challenge comes up or a new skill is needed. The more educated everyone is, the more likely they’ll be able to rise to any challenge.

Double Tap Transportation LLC offers a variety of shipping and freight services. We pride ourselves on our great customer service—from the initial order to ensuring you get accurate delivery times. Get in touch with us today to learn more about how we can help get your goods where they need to go.