How Logistics Companies Drive Better Vendor Relationships with Case Management Systems?

Eric Klimuk

Founder and CTO of Supportbench.

August 31, 2022

Logistical companies want strong vendor relationships to improve their overall operations, and they can do so by using a case management system. However, it can be challenging for your team to maintain a good relationship with the vendors since they constantly deal with customer queries and operational issues.

That is where a ticketing system can help you streamline your workflows. It is a robust system that makes managing your relationship with the vendors easy by offering a single system for all communication, tracking tasks, and requests. This system enhances the overall system and improves the transparency of your company.

Both these things play a critical role in building and maintaining positive relationships. The ticketing system also allows you to track your performance over time. So, how can you prioritize helpdesk tickets using a case management solution? And how can it help you maintain your vendor relationships? We will discuss all those things in this article.

How Can a Case Management System Help You Maintain Good Vendor Relationships?

Most logistical companies might have an influx of service requests from different vendors. They would be dealing with multiple suppliers simultaneously, which makes it necessary to have a well-run ticket management system. Many companies in various industries have started using automation to their advantage.

Whether customer support or sales, automation has helped businesses streamline their operations. The case is no different for logistics companies that can improve their communication processes and maintain better relationships with their vendors. Here is how you can take advantage of it for your business.

Access to Previous Communication with the Vendor

To better understand the ongoing issues with any vendor, you need to go through their precious communication. It will give you a better idea and guide them accordingly. A ticket management system makes it easy for you to consolidate all the previous communication in an organized manner.

You can also do the same for customers to keep all their previous interactions in the case management system. Doing so will allow you to access previous communications instantly with just a few clicks. Furthermore, it can eliminate the chances of miscommunication and improve your relationship with the vendor.

Track Data and Insights

Some case management systems also allow you to create a vendor profile that makes it easy for you to interact with them. You can also get performance data specific to each strategic vendor by creating a separate profile for each of your vendors.

The data and the communication you track make it easy to prepare vendor risk plans every year. Consequently, you can also decrease the residual risks and respond to the events accordingly.

Enhance the Customer and Vendor’s Experience

It is equally essential for a logistics company to maintain a strong relationship with its customers, just like its vendors. Since customers and vendors are both key stakeholders in your business, it is vital to have a streamlined communication process.

That is where the case management platform comes into play. It can help you improve your logistical support and customer service by being proactive. The system automates all the processes that you are team handles manually.

For instance, a customer might send an email to cancel an order. You can let the system use the relevant keywords, vendor type, and other information to set priorities for the relevant teams. The system ensures that all the requests are assigned to teams directly so they can take relevant action to inform the vendor about it.

Keep Customers Informed

Since customers are critical stakeholders for any business, you need to keep them up to date about their orders. The case management system allows you to automate the responses to the customers. It can send notifications about the relevant action for their requests.

For instance, the system can create a notification to the customer that their request is escalated to another team or department. You can also automate the response whenever any order is canceled as per the customers’ request.

The system can send out a notification to the customer without the person managing the request having to do so. It can improve the speed and ensure consistency, giving your vendors and customers the best experience possible.

How Can You Use Prioritize Helpdesk Tickets Using a Case Management Solution?

The case management solution can collect all the tickets from the end user and consolidate them into one place. While your team might focus on replying to the tickets quickly and accurately, a large number of support requests might make this a challenge. So, how do you deal with this issue? Here are a few things you can do to manage your support tickets.

Decide Which Tickets to Deal with First

There are two ways to deal with incoming tickets. The first one is FIFO (First in, First Out). It addresses support tickets in their chronological order where the team will answer the queries that came first. It is an excellent way to streamline the workflow and prevent backlog.

The other way to prioritize tickets depends on how urgent the issue is for the sender. Most case management systems can easily find out which ticket is urgent by collecting all the relevant information from the email. As a result, you can choose which sender’s ticket should be addressed first.

Keep an Eye on Ticket Statuses

The ticket management software makes it easy to monitor the status of each ticket. Every ticket has a status to give you an idea about the progress; for example, you can use the tag “Open” for all new tickets or “Closed” for all resolved issues.

This way, you can easily monitor all the status of different tickets o the central dashboard. Most importantly, it saves you from missing or neglecting any tickets. You can update the ticket status as soon as you take the relevant action on it.

Automate your Workflows

The ticket management system makes it easy for you to automate your workflow by setting alerts for tickets that are highly important. You can also set notifications for inactive tickets. This way, you can reduce the chance of human error and ensure your customers get the immediate support they need.

Moreover, the automated process is critical in ensuring that complicated issues are assigned to the right person. If the representative can’t resolve the issue, they might escalate it to the higher authority. This way, you won’t miss out on tricky tickets since they will be assigned to the relevant person.

Why is it Important To Maintain Good Vendor Relationships?

The increasing supply chain issues globally make it vital for a business to maintain a good relationship with its vendors. Since logistics companies are at the center of the supply chain industry, they need to incorporate a robust system that streamlines their process and allows them to maintain good relationships with their vendors.

Let’s go over why maintaining good vendor relationships is essential for logistics companies.

Streamlined Procurement Process

Since logistics companies are responsible for procuring goods and materials, they need a streamlined process. Developing and maintaining a good relationship with vendors ensures that you can easily find the best quality of material at reasonable pricing for your clients.

More Efficiency

In most cases, the vendor will try to work with you to resolve any issues if you have a good relationship with them. Moreover, fostering a strong relationship with vendors can also improve communication and the efficiency of their services. Also, there will be fewer order issues if you maintain a good relationship with them.

Reduced Costs

Maintaining a good relationship with your vendors can help you get fantastic discounts on your orders. You can reduce costs and increase your gross margins by building a solid relationship with your vendors. Good supplier relationships also lead to fewer delays, fewer stock availability problems, and quality issues.

Fewer Delays

Supply chain and logistics nowadays are under extreme pressure globally due to the pandemic and other geopolitical issues. As a result, it leads to more delays in the shipment of goods. It is more than necessary for logistics companies to maintain good supplier relationships to ensure there are lesser delays to provide better services to their customers.

Takeaway

Logistics companies have to deal with a wide range of requests from customers and vendors. Therefore, it becomes a bit complicated for them to manage the overall system. The best solution for this problem is to have a well-run ticket management system that can keep your support services up and running.

This way, you can maintain a healthy relationship and improve the overall vendor experience. Ticket management systems can centralize all the interaction with your end users and makes it easy for the desk representatives to respond to their requests.

You can incorporate a robust ticketing management system for your logistics company to have a strong communication channel. It will allow you to increase efficiency, provide a better experience to the vendors, and simplify the overall process for desk representatives.

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