* Evaluating customer loyalty in association with CRM in freight forwarder firms

*Freight Forwarders

* Freight forwarders link buyers and sellers and deliver products to customer in effective ways in order to create economic value

*Logistics intermediary companies

*Wide geographical coverage

*Large number of customers

*Main steps include:-

1) Preparing necessary documentation

2) Arranging vessel space

3) Undertake freight charges

4) Arranging port activities

*Freight Forwarder’s Customers

*Can Be organisations or individuals

*Lot of customers due to global market

*Customers today have more and more advantages in choosing freight forwarders

*Selection basically based on high quality services, speed, frequency and reliability between firms

*Customer Relationship Management

*Customer relationship management (CRM) is a system for managing a company’s interactions with current and future customers. It involves using technology to organize, automate and synchronize sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support.

*CRM as ”a term for methodologies, technologies, and e-commerce capabilities used by companies to manage customer relationships, and the management approach that involves identifying, attracting, developing and maintaining successful customer relationships over time

*IT in Freight Forwarder

*Information technology (IT) plays an important role for freight forwarders to manage their customer relationships

*IT systems are different between companies

*IT systems are built to:-

1) Collect customer patterns

2) Develop predictive model

3) Improve customer communication

system timely and effectivelyCRM with integrated technology can be one of the

most useful tools to gain customer loyalty and profitability

*Customer Loyalty

*Loyalty is seen as an attitude that is “considered in term of revealed behaviour through repeated purchase”

*Loyalty is directly influenced by customer satisfaction

*Understanding the customer demands and meeting their expectations are the key factors leading customer loyalty

*For achieving customer loyalty, need to understand the concept of ‘customer satisfaction’

*Customer Loyalty

*Customer satisfaction can be measure by checking customer’s transaction in the past

*Customers’ loyalty can be retained by providing special offers such as shipment charge discount and historical transaction frequency.

*Loyal customers, reduce the communication costs of attracting new customers and create brand equity

* INTEGRATION OF CRM INTO A FREIGHT FORWARDER

 *Customer satisfaction can be measure by

checking customer’s transaction in the past

*Customers’ loyalty can be retained by providing special offers such as shipment charge discount and historical transaction frequency.

*Loyal customers, reduce the communication costs of attracting new customers and create brand equity

*Evaluating the entire relationship from ‘customer’s angle rather than own’

*More the company close to customer, more advantage of gaining loyal customers.

* INTEGRATION OF CRM INTO A FREIGHT FORWARDER

 *A successful CRM program includes :-

1) Well developed customer loyalty

strategy

2) In–depth analysis of potential customers

3) Efficiently usage of appropriate

software and call center.

*Components of CRM 

*Benefits and Barriers 

*Returns of well implemented CRM program :-

1) Customer loyalty

2) Customer segmentation

3) Improvement in decision making

4) Serving customers in the best way

5) Improved services

6) Help in identifying best customers

*In implementing CRM program there are various barriers need to be handled. Initial barrier is the relationship quality which is positively related for gaining loyal customers.

*Benefits and Barriers 

*Relationship quality includes various components that leads to customer loyalty such as

1) Trust

2) Satisfaction

3) Commitment

4) Overall quality

5) Honesty and reliability of one party to

another

*Representation

*Our company promptly responds to customer’s problems, suggestions.

 

* Our company uses phone calls, e-mails, and personnel visits to communicate with customers.

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Not involved

no

Partly

Yes

Change in process

Series 1

* Our company actively responds to customer’s enquiries of our services. 

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Not involved

no

Partly

Yes

Change in process

Series 1

* Our company actively provides transportation related information to customers

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Not involved

no

Partly

Yes

Change in process

Series 1

* Our company actively understands customer’s service requirements and expectations.

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Not involved

no

Partly

Yes

Change in process

Series 1

* Our company has different marketing patterns for target customers.

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Not involved

no

Partly

Yes

Change in process

Series 1

* Our company applies customer information to marketing planning.

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Not involved

no

Partly

Yes

Change in process

Series 1

* Our company uses customer information to develop a new market. 

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Not involved

no

Partly

Yes

Change in process

Series 1

* Our company has flexible measures for customer’s urgent requirements.

 

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Not involved

no

Partly

Yes

Change in process

Series 1

* Our company provides a variety of service items and information.

 

0 10 20 30 40 50

Not involved

no

Partly

Yes

Change in process

Series 1

*How it is Achieved 

*Loyal customers are also called as key accounts which represent the major customers of freight forwarders

*Key accounts make up more than 60% of their overall trade volume

*Companies have several methods to keep their relationship with their key accounts close and improve the current relationship. Companies segmenting their current customers into two groups

1) Normal Customers :- Normal customers forms smaller percentage of overall import-export.

2) Key Account :- Key account which forms nearly entire business activity of a freight forwarder

*How it is Achieved 

Interactivity :-

1. Communication need

2. Timing and channel of delivery

3. Responsibility

4. Honesty

Communication timing needs would vary between an immediate response, a synchronized response, and a well-planned response, based on market conditions

*How it is Achieved 

Complexity :-

*Complexity is used as a parameter to figure out data feed from multiple sources, multiple reward type, fulfil requirement as well as support function.

*Operating in high competitive environment, force freight forwarding companies to manage relations with customers effectively and efficiently

*Some Freight Forwarding company uses CRM software as a useful tool to track and duplicate partners contact information while others use traditional way to track and duplicate their partner contact information, such as by documents and Microsoft Office

*How it is Achieved 

Complexity :-

*Use of email, website and telephone as useful tools to keep in touch with customers.

*Send gifts to customers in their special days and continue to do business with their key customers although they can lose their profit in some cases

*Companies use the website as a useful tool to transfer their information about companies, services, responsibility and get feedback from customers

*Besides, they take full advantage of their effective and available resources, such as customer services, email, telephone, face-to-face communication to contact customer as soon as possible

*Conclusion 

*The implementations of CRM and customer loyalty programs differ from market to market, we only focused on customer loyalty implications and methods of freight forwarders.

*The importance of managing the pricing system for the current customers.

*Because of the high competitive environment, each of freight forwarders has to exploit their strength to compete with their competitors

*Freight forwarders have specific methods to gain loyal customers

*Limitations 

*Depending on different kind of level of using CRM in different freight forwarder firms, we might be got different outcomes.

* Furthermore, number of companies in freight forwarding industry is another important factor that can be affected directly the purpose of this topic.