Quality service and fulfilling customers’ expectations is the crux of any business. However, the process of achieving them depends on what your company is leveraging in terms of technology, employees and services. The ecosystem of cold chain logistics is complex, but the right provider and guidance can help you achieve the crux of your business. For this, you need to scrutinise the minutest details of the third-party logistics company before hiring them, as they would determine your company’s success. Here are the factors to consider when hiring third-party logistics providers:
1. Analyse the services
The foremost thing to consider is what kinds of cold chain services they provide and whether they suit your requirements. Some companies offer standard supply chain services that include picking, packing, shipping and storage, while integrated supply chain services also look after the product from the point of origin to the point of consumption. The latter also focuses on customer value and business sales. Depending on your company’s requirements, you can choose your service provider.
2. Ensure they use modern technology
The primary way to survive in the market is to update yourself with technologies, which also become the crucial element to consider for your third-party logistics provider. Ensure that their packaging solutions, transporting vehicles, storage facilities and carriers are modern, reliable, sustainable and durable. The provider should have a history of consistent innovation to live up to the market and cold chain needs and improve their services. TESSOL, for example, has been consistently inventing new technologies to enhance the efficiency of cold chain supplies.
3. Check support services and response time
Nowadays, customers are actively involved in the shipping process by consistently taking updates about their delivery’s point of origin to how it reaches them. Keeping this in mind, you need to ensure that your third-party logistics provider offers such support service and has a better response time—because customers don’t like delays. Ensure that the provider keeps the customers up to date about their product and time of delivery. Also, if there are any delays, the customers should be informed on time. Such support service builds a good image of your company in the minds of customers and the market. For example, TESSOL’s proprietary asset management platform TAMsys monitors product location and collects critical data like temperature and humidity in real time, detecting issues before they happen and creating a centralised compliance reporting system for cold chain operations.
4. Ask for industry experience and records
Experience reveals expertise and records show how much the company has upgraded. When you check their history, you can compare technological innovations, work ethics, work challenges and how they overcame them, and their profit margins. This clarifies whether they can fill the gap your company has and helps you make an informed decision.
It is time to elevate the company’s standards and do what it takes to uplift your services. If you are looking for experts in cold chain solutions, contact TESSOL. Our logistics solutions are specially engineered to meet the threats of cold chain transit and protect your product delivery at crucial stages to improve your business bottom line.