Third Party Logistics: Three Call Center Reports Your 3PL Vendor Should Provide

3 Surprising Third Party Logistics Reports You Should Examine

Wondering how to know if your third party logistics partner measures up when it comes to customer contacts? At the very least, they should be consistently providing these three call center reports.

1. Key customer service metrics

So, these metrics aren’t a big surprise… Customers want two things from your call center: fast response and product knowledge. Today’s shoppers are impatient. If they have to wait to be helped, they’ll hang up. You’ve lost a sale and perhaps a customer for life. So the faster call center agents answer the phone or email or live chat, the better. Your third party logistics provider should consistently report:

• Time to answer – the industry average is 30 seconds, but you should shoot for 20 seconds or less.
• Call abandon rate – the industry average is 3%. If that sounds like a small number, remember it translates to lost sales. If you could cut that in half, what would that mean to your bottom line? Shoot for a call abandon rate below 1.5%.

The key here is that service level metrics should always match what your company needs, not what your 3PL dictates. If they can’t tailor their performance to meet your requirements as promised, reporting will show that. And if they are consistently underperforming, you can take corrective action sooner rather than later.

On the up side, reports also show if and when you’re getting better-than-expected performance. That kind of “high touch” value drives greater ROI, because superior customer care increases sales and creates more loyal customers.

2. Employee turnover rate

Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Employee churn is a killer when it comes to customer service. True customer care – the kind that assures an exceptional shopping experience — comes from people who are knowledgeable about your products and experienced in speaking with customers about those products. If your 3PL vendor has high turnover, it’s unlikely they will be able to consistently meet your company’s SLAs.

3. Customer call recordings

While not “reports” in the usual sense, call center recordings can give you invaluable insight into customer interactions. You can learn what questions they ask most often, hear their comments about your products, and listen as call center agents respond. What you hear can help improve customer care, and it can help improve your products, too.

Valuable reporting: not just what, but when

Your third party logistics partner should consistently provide detailed reporting in real time. Periodic formal reports are important, but sometimes you need access to information right now in order to make the most beneficial business decisions. Therefore, you should be able to specify how frequently you get official reports (as well as who in your company receives them). You should also have 24/7 access to your own data.

With “anytime” access to information and consistent, regular reporting, you’ll have no trouble evaluating your third party logistics provider’s call center performance.

Now that you know a bit more about choosing a third party logistics reporting, you can take one of the following three steps to continue journey in finding the top fulfillment companies.

• Download this free e-book on Choosing a Fulfillment Partner.
• Take a Fulfillment Needs Assessment to score your current state of affairs.
• Contact a fulfillment expert to have a live one-on-one conversation

3PL helps everything flow smoothly. See how USA Fulfillment can help you utilize 3PL benefits.