Shipping data is the window into your business’s performance and no matter what your growth goals are, they can be achieved by leveraging your unique data. With all the information available at your fingertips, it’s tricky to know exactly how to use the numbers and statistics you review each day to drive success. To help, we’ve put together a few of the easiest ways you can make use of your data to improve your logistics management.
What Can Be Improved By Looking at Your Shipping Data
There’s only so much you can know about how your shipping is performing and how effective your logistics management is through your daily experience and observations. Gathering the data and looking at the hard numbers will tell the clearest and least biased story. With this information, there are numerous areas of your business ready for growth and a scalable strategy for improvement.
Which KPIs to Monitor
When you have all the data in front of you and you’re familiar with the history of your shipping logistics, it’s easy to see which information is worth monitoring and what isn’t. In a previous article, we discussed which shipping KPIs you should be looking into, but you can take this a step further by customizing your KPI plan to fit your applicable data.
For example, if you see in your data that your average cost per shipment rarely fluctuates because of the nature of your business, you’ll then know not to waste your resources on watching this KPI. However, if you recognize that your order cycle time fluctuates significantly from week to week, then you have the KPI worth your team’s attention.
Forecast Seasonal Demand
When you’re entrenched in the day-to–day operations of managing your business, it’s easy to forget the performance of your shipping and logistics management in quarters or years prior. With your data properly tracked over time, you should be able to quickly take a look back to see the usual timeline for your seasonal demand and how it typically changes.
Knowing exactly when your busy seasons have begun and ended in the past, you’re then able to plan your resources appropriately and accordingly. This way, you’ll see minimal downtime, efficient productivity from not overworking your understaffed team, and predictable order cycle times. By taking the time to look over your data to forecast and strategically plan, your overall logistics management will become streamlined, giving you time to focus on other important things.
Track Carrier Performance
While a customer’s experience typically begins on your website or in their first interactions with your sales team, the thing that can make or break their overall impression of your business is shipping. A poor experience with your parcel carrier may not be under your control, but many subgroups in every target audience will equate it to your business.
In many cases, business owners only track the substantial poor experiences their customers have with shipping when it requires a full or partial refund. However, when you closely analyze your shipping data, you can find the trends that go under the radar, like frequently extended shipping timelines and regular occurrences of delivery exceptions. Without combing through this data, you may not have a clear picture of how your carrier is performing and contributing to your overall customer experience.
Recognize When It’s Time to Renegotiate Your Agreement
Once you’ve analyzed your parcel carrier’s performance data, you can move on to analyzing your average shipping costs and if your carrier ever has instances of noncompliance, either with your agreement or standard laws and regulations. This data can signal when it’s time to request a renegotiation of your agreement with your current carrier or to start shopping around with other carriers.
When you do end up going into the negotiation process, you can go prepared with reports compiled from your shipping data. This can lead to more negotiating power, evidence-based reasons warranting future discounts, and proof of your volume so you can qualify for better programs. Your current or future carrier can argue against conjecture, but not well-documented data.
Better Analyze Your Data with Reveel
Taking the first step into understanding and capitalizing on your data can seem overwhelming, but when it comes to improving your operations, the learning curve is worthwhile. Rather than going it alone, you could use a platform that leverages machine learning to transform your data into actionable insights in Reveel’s shipping logistics and operations management solutions. With our platform, you can access your Peer Index, a single score packed full of data that shows how your shipping health data compares to other businesses like yours.
Look through your business’s performance to see the impact of everything from discount and surcharge changes to carrier performance with Reveel. Our simple-to-use platform takes your complex shipping data and shows you crystal clear ways to save money. Contact us to chat with our team and schedule your demo today, or experience it firsthand by signing up for a free account.
