As Supply Chain Manager, you are the last link in the chain before the end customer, and therefore the guarantor of a successful experience. To achieve this, you need to put in place systems that contribute to customer satisfaction and loyalty. While BtoC customers benefit from highly detailed order tracking and a delivery horizon, this is not always the case in BtoB exchanges. Let's take a look at how implementing a TMS (Transport Management System) can considerably improve your customer relations.
Why is it essential to improve BtoB customer relations for delivery?
As in traditional commerce, the question of delivery has become a key factor in BtoB customer satisfaction. Your teams spend time designing products or exporting them, and think about end customers. But some of this work should not have to come up against difficult, or at least unclear, delivery.
So much so, that improving the customer experience, in particular through impeccable delivery, has become an integral part of every company's roadmap. Today, they all understand that the customer experience is the key to growth and reputation.
As the business daily Les Echos explained in May 2021, a year after the first deconfinement, we need to "reinvent and rehumanize the link with our customers", and "in BtoB, too, building a succession of hyphens with the customer has become a must".
To put the customer back at the heart of their strategy, companies today paradoxically need to implement the right digital tools. These are the tools that enable them to accurately track requests and sales cycles, and promote knowledge and information sharing. In this respect, a TMS is the most appropriate solution.
However, according to France Supply Chain's " Panorama de la digitalisation dynamique des supply chain " (2021), 1 company in 6 still has no digitalization strategy to improve its processes.
Integrating BtoC practices into BtoB delivery processes
When you order a product online, especially a high-value one, you pay close attention to order tracking. You know step by step what happens to your parcel before it reaches you.
These advantages for e-commerce customers are gradually finding their way into BtoB relations. In this field, companies can also benefit from this same functionality and many others through a TMS solution that gives them :
- Visibility at the order stage: tracking of progress through to delivery
- Access to document loading: to anticipate receiving and customs clearance operations in particular
- Access to claims management: declare a dispute, send evidence, etc.
The creation of these additional services enables us to anticipate customer needs. This is all the more important as customers are looking for a fluid, easy experience. This can lead to satisfaction and new orders, or to the creation of a catalog of additional, higher value-added services.
It's important to distinguish between the customer experience and the satisfaction rate. The latter is the result, not the end. In other words, doing everything possible to create a quality experience is essential, whatever happens. And this must be done in parallel with the employee experience.
What is an MSD?
A Transport Management System is the ideal digital tool for supply chain managers to manage their entire transport process and increase productivity. Track your goods in real time, and all the criteria you need to optimize your organization and reduce your costs. In particular, it enables you to calculate and reduce your CO² emissions. Generally speaking, a TMS reduces your overall transport costs.
The TMS is also part of an approach to improving BtoB customer relations, by always providing an accurate response on the status of the delivery at any given moment.
The benefits of TMS for customer relations and supply chain employees
A TMS is an essential tool for improving the quality of your customers' service, by tracking their orders and providing them with all the functions they need to organize their own business, including access to their documents.
At the same time, a TMS provides you with all the tools you need to automate tasks and speed up your operational processing times. It is a vehicle for transmitting information to customers and employees alike. To achieve this, the TMS limits :
- Time wasted finding information
- Foreclosures
- E-mail and telephone exchanges
It also reduces document management time. Conversely, the TMS automates recurring, time-consuming tasks, calculations, simulations and checks. As a result, you can redeploy your resources to high value-added tasks, and focus your efforts on anticipating customer deliveries.
To optimize the experience of your BtoB customers, the choice of a TMS such as MyTower TMS is today essential to pursue your digital transformation. With MyTower TMS, you can accelerate your activities and improve the quality of your customer relations.
