If you missed - we recommend to look on updates for the previous period.
Automatic booking management process
The development of mechanics and consistency in each transport transaction is approaching its climax. With the launch of the Marketplace and the rating system of freight forwarders, described in the last post, customers have become more clear about the process of working on the platform, and placing a booking now looks much more reliable.
Our team has developed a number of typical scenarios that usually occur in logistics, and the programmers have added functionality to the сlient’s and carrier’s Virtual Office, which now allows you to do everything necessary to make real international shipping deals. Now (in brief), the sequence is as follows.
1. Client places a booking
The notification comes to the client's mail and the carrier's mail. The message contains instructions for further actions, and by clicking on the link you can see a summary of the services ordered, comments and other details of booking in your account, as well as start a chat.
2. Booking overview
Going to the Virtual Office, both the carrier and the shipper can view all their bookings and their status, and by clicking on each of them - go to the detailed description.
3. Booking confirmation
The first consecutive action after placing a booking is confirmation by the carrier. The logistics provider must double-check the validity of the conditions and additional information, for example, the availability of space on the vessel, the presence of empty containers for specific dates, etc., and then confirm them to the client or send a counter-offer. This process may be accompanied by chat.
4. Confirmation for the client with the carrier’s signature
After the freight forwarder has confirmed the booking - this event is fixed by the system, the customer receives an email with an attached document containing the carrier’s digital signature and can contact the carrier in a chat to clarify the schedule for transporting the cargo, pick up and other details.
5. Acceptance of booking after offer ammendment
If the carrier has made adjustments to the previously created booking, the client must accept or reject these changes, which will also be fixed by the system. If the client accepts it - the carrier receives a notification, and in the next stage, after agreeing the transport with the client, carrier creates a preliminary schedule for the movement of cargo, which will subsequently be associated with automatic tracking.
6. Adding a schedule
After the carrier has compiled a planned cargo movement schedule, it is stored in both Virtual Offices and also duplicated by email. After that, the delivery process begins. All further changes to the schedule will be made by the carrier, and can be tracked by the client directly in the Virtual Office, or on the tracking page.
7. Finalizing the deal
After the end of delivery and payment for the services of the logistics company, the client has the opportunity to leave a review and rate, as well as write detailed comments - what they liked and did not like. In the future, this will help improve the quality of services on the platform.
Adding rates from the Marketplace
To improve the intensity of adding tariffs, we made it possible to raise the own offer up the list under the carrier account - even if there is no rate. Now, when checking the directions, logistic companies will immediately see their result, and will also be able to quickly add a tariff directly from here, if necessary.
Carrier Page
As at all times, the SeaRates website was focused on serving to shippers - importers and exporters, with one goal - so that they could find the right information, send bookings, track shipments, etc.
Obviously, only by creating favorable conditions and functionality, which is convenient for thousands of customers around the world, we were able to attract partners from the logistics business who could support us at the local level in their countries.
Now a separate link in the upper right corner - “For Carriers” is responsible for this opportunity.
Any company that is a freight forwarder, owner of transport assets or any other logistics provider can leave their contact details in order to begin the verification process and gain access to the cargoes and customers on our website.
Part of the partnership strategy is to integrate the Logistics Explorer platform so that each service provider can upload their best freight rates and sell them online on our website, as well as on their own using the built-in platform (which is even more interesting in terms of promoting their own company). Each verified carrier receives the full functionality of the Virtual Office, where they can conduct all bookings of their customers received on the platform, show customers the status of their shipments, and much more.
Updated grouping of applications and services
In order to increase the convenience of navigating the site and structuring the links in the menu, our designers presented an updated view of the transitions where icons of applications and services are used. Now it is easier not to get confused and find the right solution, no matter which page of the site you are on.
The same rework applies to the “Services” tab, where everything is done for a quick and convenient transition to the desired type of service, as well as to the “Rate request”, “All shipping leads” and “Tracking” links.
Analytics in the Virtual Office
Having switched to “Analytics” from the main panel of your Virtual Office, now each logistics company has the opportunity to track its activity and see the full picture of the sales geography, structure of the transported goods, balance of imports and exports, accents in the main directions, etc.
This is very useful for planning strategies, as well as making decisions on how to change tactics in the short term. For example, seeing the balance of imports and exports by country, you can control the freight traffic for each specific shipping line, negotiate for discounts on freight and close the flow to the circle.
Predicting the development of your own company also becomes much easier and faster, based on the monitoring of real activity, also by type of transport. Tracking the dynamics of growth over a certain period, as well as seeing the number of requests and searches from the platform on your site, it is easy to make the right decision about further actions for a month, quarter or year.
We invite you to join our open group for communication in the field of international logistics, as well as subscribe to our Telegram channel to keep abreast of innovations and the most trending news. Join us now!
