Research Highlights Areas of Customer Experience (#CX) for Strategic Transportation LTL

Client is seeking to understand levels of customer satisfaction across entire less-than-truckload (LTL) segment.  Identifying Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) relative to customer experience for LTL carriers.  Client is an established market leader in the global supply chain management industry with a commitment to providing its customers with superior service and innovative services.

One of client’s major subsidiaries operates an extensive regional LTL freight transportation network in the U.S. As part of their customer focus, they provide guaranteed, day-definite regional and transcontinental service through a network of 400+ service centers in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico.

Client has requested a proposal from Clear Seas Research to conduct a comprehensive customer experience and satisfaction research measurement. The information gathered will be used to identify areas for improvement and future change to allow Client to better service existing and potential customers and the industry.

Client partnered with Clear Seas to gauge the retail buyer’s perspective, wants and needs from a secondary brand entering this space (consumer data of interest, brand perceptions, category purchase drivers.)  Objectives in research:

• Identify what factors of the experience are most important. 
• Identify service needs and expectations. 
• Benchmark client performance against 15 competitors, Competitive ‘Best In Class’ Assessment.
• Understand the levels of satisfaction with specific factors. 
• Understand brand (service) image of client vs. competitors.
• Determine the correlation between factors of importance and overall levels of satisfaction.

A multi-phase approach is recommended encompassing primary research - qualitative and quantitative.

Phase I: ?Qualitative Focus Groups to identify key customer concerns and needs and providing direction for quantitative survey design. Key markets include New York/New Jersey, Chicago and Southern CA.

Phase II: Online Survey to identify unmet service needs; measure levels of satisfaction & performance; identify strengths of Client and opportunities for improvement.

Phase III: Online survey to understand competitive Benchmark, with (Industry-Wide) Performance Measurement.

Target Audience: Individuals must be involved in the recommendation, specification and/or purchase of LTL freight services; LTL/TL Motor Freight, C-Level, VP Logistics managers, Supply Chain Management at CPG companies

Survey Method: Online and Mobile, 300 completes

Clear Seas uncovered customer expectations for influencing factors in recommending, specifying, evaluating or purchasing their company’s choice in LTL carrier.  Additionally, analysis uncovered customer satisfaction and loyalty scores for maintaining and improving experience for customers. 

A comprehensive competitive benchmark report for client was created tracking performance against 15 competitors.  The Competitive ‘Best In Class’ Assessment allowed Client to implement strategic plan to overtake leading brands and chart a trajectory to being “1^st in Class” ranking over a multi-year initiative.

Client implemented improvements in aspects of service to improve customer loyalty and in quote timeliness for their LTL service. Client implemented strategic plan leveraging current strengths amongst customers while actively pursuing unmet needs, some of which competitors were covering and some of which were not covered at all in the industry.  The multi-year plan included timed release of features with projected client acquisition models to both out-maneuver competitors and allow time to build appropriate infrastructure “behind the scenes” and test services prior to hard launches.