Many shippers, especially ones who are connected with online businesses, work with several carriers to maximize their sales and keep up with the demand of consumers. A vast network of carriers can benefit a company, providing various options in terms of freight type, destination, and mode of shipping.
Because of several carrier options, shippers may find monitoring their freight overwhelming. Enforcing compliance among their carriers can be an extra job but this step is important to business success in so many ways.
In this article, you’ll learn the importance of monitoring carrier compliance for your business.
What Is Carrier Compliance?
Carriers need to abide to compliance requirements set forth by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), which is the Compliance, Safety, and Accountability (CSA). The CSA refers to a national standard that promotes a more reliable and safer supply chain.
Shippers should monitor carrier compliance and vice versa to attain their goals. The seven scores to measure a carrier’s CSA include unsafe driving, vehicle maintenance, crash indicator, driver fitness, controlled substance or alcohol, and hours of service (HOS) compliance. The scoring system has a 0-to-100-point scale, in which the lower the CAS score means better performance.
Every month, the FMCSA publishes the scores of different carriers to ensure they’re driving safe on the road. Hence, shippers have peace of mind knowing there’s a standard of quality in place across the shipping industry.
Important Benefits Of Monitoring Carrier Compliance
Full compliance with regulations offers many benefits to carriers and shippers. Here are the reasons carrier compliance monitoring is important:
Establish A Good Quality Carrier and Shipper Relationship
In the past, carriers had long payment cycles and poor treatment from shippers, whereas shippers experienced missed pick-ups and poor freight handling from carriers. But you can get all of these things with carrier compliance monitoring.
By monitoring carrier compliance, it promotes better carrier and shipper relationship because there’s a set guideline to avoid conflict. Carriers and shippers should follow a set of regulations for more transparent information to build better partnerships for both parties.
Shippers should take time to compare and analyze carriers before signing any agreement or contract to establish integrity and reliability of the business relationship. In this way, shippers can avoid dealing with difficult carriers and wasting time, energy, and money.
Protect Your Goods
Manufacturers have strict quality control standards to produce the best products in the market and deliver goods in a cost-efficient way. They know the importance of product quality in attracting prospective customers and keeping existing ones loyal.
Shippers don’t have time to handle shipping issues. They expect no less than safe delivery of their items from carriers. However, this isn’t always the case. As a shipper, you want to work with a carrier that will bring your goods from one place to another and report all the things going on, which is made possible by carrier compliance monitoring.
Establish Good Business Reputation
Safe transportation is crucial for an asset-based company. The quality of a shipper’s service has direct relationship to a carrier’s service. If a customer receives a bad service, the shipper bears the burden. Handling customer complaints can be daunting and frustrating. Hence, you need to hire a carrier that can represent your brand excellently and adhere to set rules.
But how do you know that you’re working with a reliable carrier? Most carriers operate on limited information, so shippers usually enter into contracts not knowing what to expect. Therefore, you need to partner with a freight broker, keeping you informed in your decisions. By doing so, you’ll build a good business image by ensuring you provide the best products to the market.
Make More Informed Shipping Decisions
The CSA reports and Transportation Management Software (TMS) advancements allow shippers to gain more relevant data to make better shipping decisions. TMS have various features that can increase the level of shipper’s visibility, building trust and shaping the future of the shipping industry.
The future of TMS will greatly help in carrier compliance monitoring. For instance, TMS programs will have built-in artificial intelligence, which will help optimize supply chain solutions. This advanced technology will allow shippers to consolidate data from the warehouse to carrier transport.
Carrier compliance helps shippers and carrier work in harmony, in which manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, and end consumers benefit from regular carrier compliance monitoring.
Shipping managers know how carriers are doing on the road, which helps in the following:
- Setting and amending policies
- Determining the best routes
- Negotiating rates based on performance
Promotes Cost-Effectiveness
Do you want to reduce your shipping expenses while you maintain excellent quality service? If your answer is yes, then you need to prioritize your logistics. Shipping managers should find the most affordable shipping option without sacrificing good quality service to consumers.
Carrier compliance monitoring helps balance and determine the best shipping options for shippers. Your goal as a shipper, should be to find the best carrier that can provide the best value. Find one that can guarantee proper communication, on time delivery, and freight safety, all geared towards customer satisfaction.
Failing to monitor carrier compliance may result in more expenses such as damaged returns, insurance, claims, and damaged goods needing to be recalled. Shipping managers should choose carriers with satisfactory CSA scores.
Ensure A Safe Road Environment
The trucking industry became more dependable because of CSA. Monitoring and reporting the performance of carriers and drivers are important to keep reputable and safe drivers on the road and eliminate unsafe drivers.
With carrier compliance monitoring, you can monitor drivers’ driving habits to reduce the number of road accidents, saving people’s lives. Of course, you can also make carrier accountable for their actions.
Conclusion
Remember that if products get damaged during transportation, then the manufacturer’s reputation is also affected. If you want to keep your business going, you need to work with a reputable carrier and carry out regular carrier compliance monitoring.
As you’ve realized the importance of carrier compliance monitoring, you can move forward and enforce your strict parameters to ensure your packages will arrive at their intended destination unharmed. In this way, you’ll build a good reputation as a shipper and a business owner, which brings tons of benefits such as higher trust rating and revenue.
