5 Courier Shipping Challenges that an Online Shipment Tracking Platform Solves

As a shipper, wouldn’t it be perfect if your goods reached their destinations on time, without damage, and that too at a reasonable price? Sounds like wishful thinking, right? Well, the good news is, there’s a solution that can come optimistically close to this scenario — Online Shipment Tracking Platforms.

Online shipment tracking platforms are unified visibility interfaces that grant you in-transit visibility on your shipments. And what does that have to do with delivery delays and shipment costs? Everything! 

Here are the 5 major Challenges that shippers face with courier partners and how an online shipment tracking platform could be a panacea to all problems.

P.S. -  There’s a little something for you at the end of this article. Read on to find out what it is…

5 Major Challenges in Courier Shipping

1. Managing Multiple Courier Partners

   One way you can reduce shipping costs is by maintaining a database of courier partners and leveraging them based on their performance and pricing. But this also means that the shipper now needs to handle multiple POCs for tracking shipments via their respective management systems. This scenario is not just chaotic but also demands heavy expenditures from the shipper’s workforce in tracking and maintaining records.

   
   What’s worse is that you are completely reliant on these partners to get timely updates on their shipments.
   
   

2. Goods Damaged In-Transit

   Imagine purchasing a high-value commodity (or any commodity for that matter), and it gets delivered in a damaged condition! Not only does this hurt a brand’s reputation, but it also leads to loss of sales, loss of customers, and zero reconciliation for the damaged property.

   
   

   Moreover, with a lack of visibility and proof of accountability, you can bid farewell to any kind of reconciliation on the damage caused. 
   
   

3. Delayed Delivery and Lack of Visibility

   Another pain point in courier shipping is the delay in delivery that results in loss of sales and, eventually, revenue for the shipper. Delays could occur due to multiple reasons. For example, the driver might take unwanted breaks during the journey, hoping to make it up by over-speeding, and that often leads to accidents. Or, they might have gotten into an accident.

   
   

   Either way, it’s very difficult to mitigate delays if you aren’t tracking shipments in real-time or without visibility on courier activities.
   
   

4. Below Par Customer Satisfaction

   The customer is king! And a lack of visibility on the already uncertain online purchase could prove lethal for your brand’s reputation. Courier parcel tracking provisions have now become mandatory for shippers to keep their customers informed and happy. If you fail to offer that, you are most likely pushing them towards your competitors in search of a better experience.
   
   

5. Errored Planning Stemming from a Lack of Insights

   Siloed courier parcel tracking can often lead to data loss or spillage. Without insights into courier performance and optimal routes for set destinations, you might end up relying on the wrong partners for your courier shipping requirements. This could hit you even worse if it’s a high-value consignment.

While these are not the only challenges that pop up while dealing with multiple courier partners, these definitely top the list. So, how do we mitigate this situation?

Most of these challenges stem from a lack of visibility over in-transit consignments and loss of data/efficient workforce while managing such siloed operations. That’s where a unified online shipment tracking platform could be your best ally! 

Benefits of an Online Shipment Tracking Platform

1. Complete Shipment Visibility

   An ideal shipment tracking platform provides you with real-time visibility of your courier parcels. How? It seamlessly integrates with partner PMSs (Parcel Management Systems) and automates milestone-level data collection to track multiple shipments on a single dashboard.
   
   

2. EPOD and Damage Reconciliation

   Apart from tracking services, some unified platforms also offer electronic proof of delivery (EPOD) to allocate accountability across the chain of command. EPODs let you capture images and written descriptions of the parcel during a change of hands and facilitate appropriate reconciliation in case of damages.

   
   What’s more, this also gets you an extra point from your end customer in case their goods are delivered in a damaged condition. How? They can immediately post an image and comment regarding the parcel’s condition, and you can kickstart the remediation process.
   
   

3. End-to-End Automation

   Right from creating an order to capturing appropriate proof of delivery to tracking shipments, every milestone in the courier’s logistic journey is automated and error-free. What’s more, online shipment tracking platforms also facilitate freight auditing so that you can reconcile in case of billing errors.
   
   

4. Open-Links to Ensure Customer Satisfaction

   With open-link tracking services, your customers can gain real-time visibility over in-transit parcels and ensure availability for receiving the same. This direct access to parcel whereabouts not only elevates your brand’s reputation in the eyes of your customers but also reduces reverse logistics resulting from the lack of availability of end-consumers.
   
   

5. Data-Driven Courier Benchmarking for Efficient Planning

   Online shipment tracking platforms also offer benchmarking services based on courier performance data. With insights on lane analysis and performance metrics for individual courier partners, you can determine the best options for your shipping requirements.
   
   

At a Glance

Small-scale businesses with comparatively smaller loads and shipment sizes often rely on an extensive network of courier partners for their logistics needs. However, managing such extensive networks can take a real toll on business procedures with respect to the amount of manual effort required to keep track of these shipments.

Investing in a manual workforce, errors due to procedure redundancy, the sheer load of tracking data, lack of visibility over in-transit assignments, SLA breaches, and dissatisfied customers – an online shipment tracking platform helps solve all that and more.

If you are still reading this, you are definitely driven to solve your courier shipping challenges. Well, why don’t you let us help you with it? Intugine’s IntuParcel is a one-stop shipment tracking platform that offers all of the above solutions with an added layer of customization to meet your business-specific demands.

Reach out to us, and we will help you formulate the ideal solution!