Supply chain is becoming global. Ports & Terminals are the main gateways from which this supply chain moves. Any delay in containers, causes big disruption in customer’s supply chain.
To plan in advance and avoid any disruptions in supply chain, customer expects to get container status 24×7 and from anywhere in the world. With advent of mobility and internet, they expect it to be available on mobile or tab.
Thousands of containers move in and out of terminals every day. With increased competition, terminals are interested in achieving customer loyalty through high customer satisfaction.
Traditional and manual customer support process costs lot of money. Also it is error prone. With customer expectations of 24×7 support and sometimes in multiple, languages, terminals have to either spend lot of money or risk of losing unsatisfied customer.
Interestingly, most of the information is available in Terminal Operating System in real time. But without limited access to this information, it remains in information island.
The best solution to increase customer satisfaction, reduce cost is to develop a Customer Self-service Portal. Such a portal accesses customer required information in real time from TOS and other systems like Billing etc. Such portals are secure, have multi-lingual abilities and available 24×7. Also can be accessed from anywhere from world and from any device. It can send SMS or emails to customer either on request from customer or pro-actively.
Below is the broad architecture of the customer self-service portal
Such a system can be enhanced further to show details like,
- Special Service request Management
- Container hold/released related information
- Showing billing information
- Payment processing
- Internal Management reporting
Such Customer Self-Service portals greatly reduce support costs. At the same time it increases customer satisfaction and loyalty
Port Community: What’s In It for them ?
Shipping business has many critical and external components such as shipping companies, customs, CFS (Container Freight Stations) and more.All actions of these organizations need to happen in synchronized fashion for smooth supply chain flow. This can happen only if right information is available at right time.
Customer service portal is a foundation to seamlessly connect with whole port community. Portal can be integrated with shipping lines systems to provide greater visibility of cargo to customer. Information like import availability, container booking and delivery information can be shared through portal.
It can be integrated with Customs, CFS and Trucking companies so that real time information, billing information can flow seamlessly.Also payments can be processed through this systems with direct update to accounts receivables in financial systems.
Why Envecon ?
Developing such a system needs intimate understanding of Ports and Terminal business. Besides it also need deep functional understanding of TOS and it’s data structures. Envecon has extensive and end-to-end experience with ports and terminals in 32 countries. This makes
Envecon expert and most capable IT service provider in Ports & Terminal space. Customer Service Portals also requires data to be pulled in real time. Since the application is web-based, security, performance and customer experience becomes more critical. Envecon has proven technical abilities in this space.
