Logistics companies have a complex business with many points of interaction. It is also a competitive industry where customer expectations are growing. This places demands on efficient communication channels and high-performance customer service. But many logistics companies do not have a good communications solution and this has consequences for both costs and productivity.
The logistics sector has an enormously important role in the economy, something that became particularly obvious to the consumers during the Covid pandemic.
But it is not an easy role. Environmental issues and fuel prices put the industry to the test. Supply chains are long and technological development is driving many changes. In addition, customers’ demands for both delivery times and service levels are increasing.
Specific demands on communication
Many logistics companies work around the clock every day of the year and operate in several countries. People in offices, warehouses, distribution and transport need to be able to communicate with each other – and customer service needs to be able to handle lots of different questions. Historically, it has been difficult to get a flexible communication solution that includes different employee groups and spans national borders. Therefore, many logistics companies have challenges with their telecoms.
3 common telecoms challenges for logistics companies
Here are common telecoms challenges for logistics companies and what the consequences tend to be.
1. Complicated and expensive with operators in every country
Traditional telecoms operators have difficulty offering telecoms in other countries. This means that logistics companies and other international companies, need to sign telecoms agreements in each country. This in turn means:
- Lots of different contacts
- Many separate agreements, with different suppliers
- Vulnerability if the phone system goes offline
- Difficult to get an overview – what happens when an employee leaves the business
- High cost of telecoms; partly because of contractual periods in the various agreements, partly because the communication between countries takes place as international calls and finally
- Because it costs a lot to have support in all countries 24/7
2. Inefficiency when communication takes place in silos
When telecoms and other forms of communication are not connected, the opportunities for cooperation and productivity decrease. Here are some examples:
Difficulty adapting telephone exchanges – Traditionally, operator exchanges (both physical and in the cloud) have been difficult to adapt and integrate with other systems, such as CRM. This means that customer service receives calls from calling customers without having any information about them – matters take time and the customer experience is not as high as it could be. Opportunities are also missed such as automatic updating of delivery status via button selection in the exchange.
Different tools for communication – if you use different tools for different types of communication (chat, meetings, phone calls, collaboration in files) it takes time for employees to jump between applications, the risk of errors increases and the information becomes difficult to access.
Different types of phones for employees – If employees use handsets in the warehouse, mobile phones in transport, computers and mobile phones in the office – and these are not integrated with each other – then you will miss out on synergy. For example, you cannot take full advantage of availability status, easy call forwarding and call queue management.
3. Difficult and expensive to co-operate between countries
The above also means that telecoms solutions between countries are not connected. This makes it difficult to collaborate across national borders, for example by centralizing their customer service. A company that wants to relocate its Nordic support to Sweden, for example, needs to be able to make and receive calls on both Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and Danish numbers, which is difficult to obtain from a traditional national operator. Another scenario is to place customer service in a couple of countries that collaborate and relieve each other when needed. It is a solution that provides productivity gains, huge cost savings and evens out the workload for staff. With a traditional telecom solution, however, it is an impossible path because telephone costs become too high.
A single platform solves the challenges of telecoms for logistics companies
The good news is that there is a solution to all of the challenges above. Namely, to have a unified telecoms solution on one and the same platform. This is possible through a virtual operator that uses other operators’ networks. International numbers for all countries are provided via the same operator and an agreement provided the number of subscriptions can be flexibly adjusted as required. Collaboration between countries cuts costs because internal calls are made instead of international ones via the telephone network. Infracom is a virtual operator that uses the most optimized telephone network in each country and offers complete solutions for communication. Among others, we have helped Havi go from traditional telecoms to a fully international Teams Phone solution.