Newsletter - April2018

Centrolene
NewsEdge Know more.
Page: 10
64% of US households subscribe to Amazon Prime, and US ecommerce now
accounts for 9.1% of total retail sales. However, at the time of the survey, only
10% of the top twenty forwarders (Agility and Kuehne + Nagel) had instant LCL
quoting. Geodis has recently joined them.
Beyond measuring online sales automation, the survey also shone light into
how customer-oriented top forwarders are.
In 2018, most logistics providers still do not view their websites as being a
serious sales channel. “Only Kuehne + Nagel prominently place their quote
request form on their homepage. Eleven forms were nonetheless
straightforward to find, with the remaining eight taking some time to track
down.
Some of the form layouts proved challenging. One neglected to request basic
information like shipment ready date, meaning their sales team must go back
for basic information.
Five forwarders failed to confirm that the quote request had been submitted,
leaving the requester unsure if the request had actually been received.
Of the 18 companies who couldn’t quote instantly, only five (28%) eventually
quoted. In other words, 13 providers, having solicited leads through their
website, failed to follow up on this red-hot lead, effectively turning away a
potential new customer.
Quote formatting and clarity has steadily improved over the past three
surveys, with all but one of the quotes attractively laid out and easy to
understand. Two aspects haven’t improved, though: Only four companies
provided a positive response to the request before quoting. The follow up of
two others was poor.
One sent another required form for completion, and the other (who failed to