Automation: new customer portal enables efficiency gains

Transuniverse Forwarding’s new customer portal is up and running. Customers can now input their orders directly. This new step in the automation of communication between Transuniverse and its customers will significantly reduce the error rate in bookings. It also brings benefits such as efficient track and trace and easy downloading of the Proof of Delivery and customs and other documents.

 

With the new portal, Transuniverse has expanded its order intake options. Many customers – not just larger enterprises but also small and medium-sized enterprises with an efficient IT infrastructure – book their orders by EDI, but others do so by e-mail. “At first glance, it seems like a simple and quick way to book a transport order. But if any data is missing or inaccurate, e-mails have to be sent back and forth, which wastes time for both the customer and the Transuniverse staff. That is why we are setting up this higher level of automation,” says IT manager Kevin Demeyer.

The new portal will thus become central to improving the quality of service and reducing the error rate. “The latter is crucial, because if something goes wrong at the beginning of the chain, it will go wrong in the rest of it. That means even billing can go wrong,” he adds.

 

Four options

“From now on, the customer has four options for placing an order: via EDI, via the customer portal, via an Excel template that is e-mailed to booking@transuniverse.be or via an e-mail. Using a template reduces the risk of errors, but doesn’t eliminate them. And this method is not interactive. E-mails require a lot of administrative work. Therefore, from now on we will charge 5 euro per order for handling. So the preferred booking methods are EDI and the customer portal,” says Griet Gyselinck, Customer Service & Business Development Manager.

 

Additional benefits

“Booking an order via the customer portal offers the customer many additional benefits, such as the ability to attach documents and monitor the status of the shipment. It is also possible to request invoices and other documents, such as a Proof of Delivery (PoD) for each invoice. That is certainly also a plus for the customer,” she says.

“Meanwhile, we continue to work on refining our tools on the supplier side. We will be able to receive and process information on shipments even faster and this will allow us to notify our customers more quickly. For example, the Delivery Confirmation Tool, a proactive notification of departure and arrival, will lead to greatly improved track and trace for our customers,” adds Kevin.

“The customer portal also allows us to send a link, the e-tracker, to the recipient to track the shipment. You can compare it to what we have become accustomed to nowadays with e-commerce. And after the delivery, the customer can download not only the PoD but also customs and other documents,” says Kevin.

 

Operational advantages

In operational terms, too, a booking through the customer portal offers great advantages. “It is easier to draw up the loading list, which enables the shipper’s warehouse keeper to prepare the shipment for departure more efficiently. It can also generate labels in Transuniverse format and stick them on the goods itself. This also reduces the error burden, especially when goods are being collected for different destination countries,” he continues.

 

Win-win

“We expect booking through the new customer portal to eliminate many problems at source. It’s a win-win, as it enables efficiency gains for both the customer and Transuniverse,” concludes Griet.

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