[Freight Forwarders] How to add value to your services

Whether you have an international land, sea, or air logistics company, it is often complex to add a differentiated value from your competition, because of course they all offer the same services, similar prices, and everything is defined more by price than by value.

In all companies in general, it is a matter of forming a bond with customers, so that at the time of requesting a quote there is some kind of "preference" or even a possible dialogue to get closer to the lowest price quoted by a competitor.

Provide some help

We forget that on the other side there are people, and those people are potential customers, but we usually don't help them, and typically companies don't offer value before the sale, everyone expects there to be a payment to show value.

But... How can we trust a company that doesn't show us the added value before?

And as you should already know, it is no longer so easy to sell. And the process of visiting certain clients, leaving a printed folder, and "waiting" for the quote request is no longer as effective. (Why?).

Doubtful businessmen or that you don't know well

Don't you think some people are potential customers but don't know they need you? Yes, many businessmen do not know what freight forwarders are, how air cargo is contracted, or more specifically, they don't know the difference between LCL and FCL. Many even believe that to make a load of comex, they need to bring a full container.

So, knowing this need for information, what do you do to solve it? Imagine offering a downloadable material that allows entrepreneurs to know more about everything related to maritime cargo. This gives value, and not only that, but in exchange for giving them this valuable document, we ask them for certain information.

Then, with that data and a CRM, we track it knowing what their interests are, their preferred times to find out about this topic, etc.

Dig deeper into their problem

Then, imagine that someone has been interested in that material where you explain the types, benefits, and cons of maritime cargo and now you inform them that you have a success story available to download where you explain how a customer of yours has gone from importing LCL cargo to 10 containers in a year.

This does not depend on the service you have offered, but everything is related and everything helps. We assure you that everyone will download it, and since this document has a greater added value, we ask for more valuable information, such as their annual billing, if they already imported/exported, what their monthly cargo volume is, etc.

Close sales

And then, what's left is to call them, quote them the service and ask them when we start with the first load with a discount percentage if they do it with you before a certain date.

Now, don't you think you've helped these customers since they didn't know they needed you? Don't you think this is adding value to your services? They know very well that you have helped them in their process of ignoring their problem, then you have presented them with alternatives to solve this. And I assure you that most of these people who follow the same path will not even look for more prices because they trust you. You generated a commercial relationship with a value greater than the price of the service itself, this is how Inbound is applied to Logistics.