A fellow -member of the freight forwarding community recently sent me an email, (‘Nice of them to keep in touch’, I thought), which proudly, announced their intention to move to a total on-line booking system. No need to call, no need to speak to anybody, no need to email, fax or even send a telegram; just log-on and book. It reads well with an invitation for the uncertain among us to ‘reach out’ to their sales team in case we feel unable to cope with this new system. Failing this we can sign up for one of their Webinars. I know what you’re thinking … “That’ll do nicely then, let’s do that”.
This is not a new innovation within the industry in fact, other freight forwarders and some of the larger shipping lines have also rolled out systems like this in recent years and we wish our fellow-forwarders every success in taking this new direction.
Now, that said here at Eclipse, we’re not Luddites wanting to hold the freight industry back in the days of steam and sail – far from it in fact, our IT system is state of the art, running dedicated industry specific software 24 hours a day however, we are first and foremost, a service provider and feel strongly that our work and the service we deliver is strengthened through speaking directly with our customers: providing information, discussing their specific needs and walking with them through the complex as well as the straight-forward shipments.
So, whether we’re moving a pallet to Brussels or 500 x 40’ containers to Jeddah (yes, we’ve done that too), we believe firmly that our customers must have the ability to contact us from quoting to booking and through to execution of their shipment. So write, call, email or even let fly with a burning arrow and parchment paper note attached (not exactly SITPRO, I admit), I promise we’ll still be very happy to accept your booking.
