If you’re a business that operates a warehouse you’re most likely shipping products to your customers. This puts your warehouse operations squarely in charge of organizing both the fulfilment and transportation of those products so that your customers are happy and satisfied. Chances are as well that you’re using multiple carriers to fulfill these transportation needs.
The real challenge in organizing these shipping needs is in creating a streamlined process from the time an order is received all the way to final delivery. Thus, while warehouses may be adept at processing orders, especially if they’re using a WMS, the shipping and transportation element may be more of a challenge. This is especially true as carrier costs are frequently changing, not to mentioned regulatory requirements.
Ultimately businesses need to look at ways to better manage the entire fulfilment process, from warehouse to customer, and make it as seamless as possible. One of the best ways to do this is by integrating your WMS with multi-carrier shipping software. So, what is multi-carrier shipping software?
Multi-carrier shipping software allows businesses to access multiple carriers all at once so that they can instantly compare rates and choose the best fit based on price, transportation times, and available service based on the specific needs of an order. And the benefits of integrating your WMS to a multi-carrier shipping software are significant.
First and foremost a multi-carrier shipping software will help to lower costs. Instead of having to rely on rates from only a few (if not a single) carrier accounts for pricing the multi-carrier software will present you with a multitude of quotes from carriers for your package. You can even filter the results so that you get the rates that best suit your specific need and then choose the best price. This will save your business shipping costs and allow you to pass these savings to your customer.
Integrating your WMS to a multi-carrier shipping software lets your business streamline and automate the process of retrieving and managing shipping rates. Previously businesses would have to manually enter information into several carrier portals to compare rates and then choose the right one. This created a duplication of work and at times the effort was so time consuming that businesses tended to rely on perhaps one or two carriers and set up accounts strictly with these, thus limiting their choice. By integrating a multi-carrier shipping software to your WMS you can make it a seamless part of the fulfilment and package preparation process. Workers can access all the rates available to them, choose the correct one, and then print the label either from their workstation computer or even from their handheld scanner device. Through the integration the WMS provides all the information regarding the package to the multi-carrier software and allows for the seamless transmitting of carrier quotes, thus cutting down on labor time. This increases productivity and reduces overall costs.
This type of seamless process integration and automation lets your business meet your customer’s needs, especially in our technologically based and fast paced environment. Customers have high expectations, and those expectations are only intensifying. This includes everything from knowing the status of their orders, expected delivery times, overnight delivery, and competitive rates, amongst others. Errors in shipping details and unreliable tracking can tarnish your business’ reputation and increase complaints. But by integrating your WMS with multi-carrier shipping software you can confirm and communicate shipping costs, receive status and delivery tracking for your shipments to share with your customers, as well as generate and print package labels without having to manually input the shipping details. By removing manual data inputs and automating your process you will remove the likelihood of errors and increase accuracy. This makes for an efficient and secured process that will keep your customers satisfied and your business running like clockwork.
As we can see multi-carrier shipping software integrated with your WMS can positively impact your business. It helps to lower costs associated to both your shipping and fulfilment process, standardizes and improves the efficiency of your processes, increases productivity and reduces turnaround times, decreases error, and increase customers satisfaction by providing them with the shipping details and options they’ve come to expect. WAM in fact integrates with the multi-carrier shipping software Easypost to make our customer’s shipping processes easier and efficient. Improving your shipping will not only help your business but also improve your customer experience; and satisfying customers is what good businesses are all about.
If you’re looking to better your shipping experience and are looking for a WMS that can be integrated with multi-carrier shipping software, click the link below to contact us. We’d be happy to help!