When it comes to international shipping, building a strong relationship with your shipping carrier is key to ensuring a smooth and reliable shipping process. This is important for businesses of all sizes, whether you’re a small business looking for dependable service or a large business handling high-volume shipments. By developing a good partnership with a reliable shipping carrier, you can negotiate better shipping rates, secure faster deliveries, and ensure that any potential issues are resolved quickly, making your shipping operations much easier to manage. In this post, we will break down the benefits of having a solid relationship with your shipping partner and how it can improve your global shipping operations.
Why a Good Relationship Matters
Shipping companies are responsible for transporting your goods safely and efficiently, often across long distances or international borders. When you build a good relationship with your shipping carrier, they become more than just a service provider—they become a strategic partner. This relationship can bring several advantages:
- Better Rates and Discounts: As a loyal customer, shipping carriers may offer you better rates or discounts, especially if you’re shipping in large quantities. This is particularly useful for large businesses but can also benefit small businesses that ship regularly. By negotiating bulk discounts, you can significantly reduce your shipping costs.
- Priority Service: During busy seasons like holidays or peak shopping periods, many shipping companies experience delays. If you have a good relationship with your carrier, they may prioritize your shipments over others, ensuring your products reach customers on time. This can be a huge advantage, particularly for e-commerce businesses that rely on timely deliveries.
- Personalized Support: One of the biggest benefits of a strong shipping partnership is personalized customer service. Whether you’re a small or large business, having a dedicated account manager or support team that understands your shipping needs can make problem-solving much easier. If a shipment is delayed or lost, you’ll have direct contact with someone who can quickly resolve the issue without the usual hassle.
- Tailored Shipping Solutions: Your shipping partner can offer customized solutions that match your specific business needs. For example, if you ship fragile or high-value items, your carrier might offer specialized packaging or insurance options. This level of service is hard to get without a strong working relationship.
- Operational Efficiency: Large businesses, in particular, benefit from a long-term partnership with shipping companies by improving operational efficiency. Your carrier can help streamline logistics, suggest better shipping routes, or provide storage solutions, all of which can save your company time and money. Even small businesses can benefit from simplified logistics by trusting a reliable partner to handle complex shipping needs.
How to Build a Strong Relationship
To develop a great relationship with your shipping carrier, communication is key. Regularly communicate your business’s shipping needs, upcoming volume changes, and any specific challenges you face. Feedback is valuable too—if something isn’t working, let them know. Building trust takes time, but by being transparent and reliable yourself, you’ll create a partnership that benefits both you and the shipping company.
For smaller businesses, the process might be as simple as choosing a shipping company with strong customer support and regularly using their services. For larger businesses, forming partnerships may involve negotiating contracts and developing a strategy for ongoing collaboration. In both cases, the goal is to create a dependable and efficient shipping process that allows your business to grow.
