What Sets the Best 3PLs Apart from the Rest?

Are All 3PLs Alike?  Not At All!

One of the quickest ways I’ve learned to discover that a client has never worked with a quality 3PL is that they ask “Are all 3PLs alike?” – or they tell me that all 3PLs are, in fact, alike.  Nothing could be further from the truth, something that clients of Diversified Transportation Services know as fact.

The perception of clients who’ve never worked with us is often that 3PLs are just quoting machines, which is not at all what Diversified does for its clients.

We are a complete supply chain enhancement platform that can be bolted onto an existing WMS, Oracle, or SAP system for our clients to pull rates via API calls.

More than just providing quotes, we take the time to take an in-depth look at our clients.  We work to meet their specific needs, based on products, valuation of shipped goods (for insurance purposes), and the expectations of the clients of our clients when it comes to deliveries.

The reality of price:

Price is always an issue, but contrary to most people’s beliefs, it’s not actually the primary factor for many shipping clients.

Often, shippers think it’s the primary driving factor, but it isn’t.  If price were truly the only factor, everything would move via rail and take much longer to deliver than the typical LTL provider.

Technology:

Everyone has a TMS platform, but plenty of clients do not know how to use it, have access to it, or understand the process by which they need to know to get accurate rates.

The key point is accurate rates.  Wrong NMFCs or lack of NMFCs can increase the invoice drastically.

A well-established 3PL takes the time to understand its clients’ overall needs and educates them.  This is not done overnight and it takes some time to do it the proper methodical way in order to achieve the overall success that the client is expecting.

Net Freight Cost:

Lastly, the net freight cost is only one component of the overall savings that a shipper may see using a 3PL.

By using the right 3PL, they’ll engage the management team and put an action plan in place to drive down overall logistics costs.

All of these things combine into a measurable key performance indicator (KPI) of improved shipments, decreased cost per shipment, and overall satisfaction on the part of your clients.

It’s a lot more than “just providing quotes”.