No matter how friendly and professional your agents may be, no one looks forward to calling customer service.
The logistics industry relies heavily on efficient communications, so customers look for terminal customer service portals to easily find the information they need to plan logistics, make secure payments, and save time.
The purpose of online customer service portals may be clear—but how can you strike the balance between a powerful suite of features and the up-front cost of customized software?
How will you know if the software you’re thinking of investing in is flexible, configurable, and will easily integrate with your existing systems?
To help you decide, we’ve compiled our list of the six most important features your customer service portal needs to have.
1. Enhanced Availability
The first feature on the list is enhanced availability.
Enhanced availability means more than just being able to get the status of a given container on demand. Your customers are potentially shipping dozens of containers at once—so they should be able to check them all at once, along with clearance and demurrage status, to accurately plan their logistics.
A shipping customer service portal with enhanced availability will result in:
- Reduced demand on customer service agents, improving customer experience and lowering costs.
- Faster gate turn times by allowing customers to use real-time updates to check clearance status.
- Faster cargo flow and improved customer trust through transparent demurrage updates.
- Optimized terminal operations through reduced delays and improved communication with customers.
If the software suite you’re evaluating doesn’t facilitate real-time detailed container status, it’s far behind the competition.
2. Automated Notifications
In logistics, everyone suffers when there is a lack of efficient communication:
- Truckers risk waiting around for containers that aren’t ready yet, impacting their routes and potentially disrupting their schedule for days or even weeks.
- Shipping lines can experience high turnaround times, causing port congestion and eating into profits.
- Brokers can experience difficulty planning, potentially leading to high demurrage fees and damaging client relationships.
Avoiding all of these problems can be as simple as investing in a terminal customer service portal that provides proactive customer support through automated notifications.
These notifications can come in any format your customer prefers, including emails, text messages, or push notifications.
Choosing a portal with automated notifications means being able to tell your customers they don’t need to worry about checking your portal frequently—instead, they can choose to wait to hear from you about the status of their containers and plan accordingly.
3. Online Payments and Guarantees
No matter the industry you’re in, you don’t want to make it difficult for your customers to pay you.
Online, secure payment options are foundational to any shipping customer service portal. You’ll need a flexible, easy-to-use platform that facilitates numerous payment options, including credit cards and trusted accounts. Customers should have access to pay demurrage and any ancillary terminal fees they may owe.
Making sure the payment process is as painless as possible will:
- Build trust with customers through convenience as well as faster payment processing.
- Improve scalability.
- Help you stay in line with security and compliance procedures.
4. Rapid User Adoption
The next important feature to evaluate is the terminal customer service portal’s user interface.
All of the useful features in the world don’t mean a thing if the platform is difficult or unintuitive.
You’ll want to ensure that the platform you adopt facilitates rapid user adoption via:
- A user-friendly dashboard.
- Notifications and alerts.
- Streamlined document management.
- Payment integration.
- Clear and intuitive navigation.
- Easy access to customer support.
When evaluating your portal’s user-friendliness, try to imagine the point of view of each of your customers.
While brokers and shipping lines log on from their laptops, truckers will likely log on from a mobile device.
Can the platform you’re considering handle every user’s needs seamlessly while still providing an efficient communication channel?
5. Booking Pre-Check
Not all pickups are as smooth as grab-and-go. Truckers will often be required to upload documentation, confirm appointments, and get cargo details in advance to efficiently plan and execute their routes.
To facilitate this, your terminal customer service portal should have a booking pre-check feature.
This feature allows truck drivers to verify all important information well before arriving at the terminal.
A pre-check feature should include tools that allow truckers to:
- Upload documentation.
- Make payments in advance.
- Confirm appointments.
- Obtain cargo details.
- Communicate special requests or inquiries pertaining to their pick-up.
6. A Proven Security Model
Finally, no terminal customer service portal is worth considering unless it ensures data protection to keep information as secure as possible.
Online portal models are fantastic for their convenience—there’s nothing easier than logging into a portal and accessing information with just a few clicks. However, if the portal’s data isn’t secure, you risk heavy compliance-related fines and losing crucial customer trust.
Look for a terminal customer service portal that uses a model like secure socket layer (SSL) encryption. SSL can:
- Ensure data integrity by protecting against tampering.
- Allow users to authenticate the website they’re interacting with.
- Ensure confidential data is encrypted.
- Ensure compliance with data-related compliance regulations.
- Instill user trust and confidence thanks to the padlock icon in their web browser.
Reduce Costs and Improve Turn Times with Tideworks’ Forecast
At Tideworks, we understand the importance of investing in a comprehensive and efficient customer service portal.
It’s an opportunity to make your customers’ lives easier, reduce overhead, streamline operations, and open up a world of long-term growth.
That’s why Forecast is the leading customer service portal for marine terminals.
At Tideworks, we prioritize the features we mentioned in this blog, including:
- Enhanced availability
- Automated notifications
- User-friendliness
- Booking pre-checks
- Time-saving tools
- Built-in data safety
All in the service of helping you improve your customer experience and execute more efficiently.