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The Intersection of Customer Experience and Technology with Eric Ritchey
96 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, Eric Ritchey, Director of Operations and Business Development at Panda Logistics, joins Host Brian Glick, CEO of Chain.io, to discuss:
- How Eric got started in international trade and logistics
- The role of a freight forwarder and how it’s evolved
- Obstacles forwarders face in international shipping
- The motivation for creating a tracking portal
- Tips to run an efficient and effective logistics business
Eric works as the Director of Operations and Business Development at Panda Logistics, a logistics operator providing a full range of service in transportation and customs clearance worldwide, for any type of cargo.Tune in now!
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Transcript
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:04
Speaker
to Supply Chain Connections. I'm Brian Glick, founder and CEO at Chain.io. On this episode, we have Eric Ritchie. Eric is the Director of Operations and Business Development at Panda Logistics.
Why Technology and Logistics Need Each Other
00:00:16
Speaker
Eric has a real passion for the intersection between the customer experience, the technology and a freight forwarder, and the real operational nitty gritty of getting freight moved. And so if you're interested in
00:00:31
Speaker
where tech is going and what a real forwarder thinks about what isn't being serviced by the technology companies that are out there. This is the episode for you. So without further ado, here's the interview. Eric, welcome to the show. Thank
Eric's Journey and Panda Logistics Branding
00:00:50
Speaker
you, Brian, for having me. So tell me a little bit about Panda and how you ended up in the industry.
00:00:57
Speaker
Yeah, so actually about three and a half years ago, so Panda, one of my mentors here, Paul, gave me a call, an invite to come on to Panda Logistics USA and help revamp the whole USA side of things.
00:01:09
Speaker
I guess for Panda on that piece there, the one thing that you will hear, Panda USA, we are fairly small on the USA side, but we have a pretty large footprint around the world. So the big thing that you will hear is the animal name. So our headquarters is Panda Logistics. They're based out of type one there, but all the different animal names of other companies you will hear, those are our sister and daughter companies there.
00:01:31
Speaker
You've got Dolphin, Whale Logistics, Penguin, Pegasus, World Jaguar, Falcon, the list goes on and on. FM Global, I always joke that they're the black sheep just because they chose a non-animal name. They're still fantastic and a great sister company partner of ours. But that's kind of the background of Panda. We're pretty much opposite all around the world on that piece. What's your favorite name?
00:01:54
Speaker
I'm going to put you in the spot here. Tough questions first. I obviously panned the logistics, you know. But, you know, I actually really like a little jaguar on the side. That was a cool thing. I've been joking around with creating a new panther logistics. And so I love the whole animal theme. It's great because even when we're working with our companies, we see the animal name. We instantly know, at least in the NVO world, there is a 99% chance that they are connected to us. In every case, I've come across so. Stay away from snail and slaw.
00:02:24
Speaker
Yeah, those are not on the list of potential. Not the metaphors we're going for. So what about you personally? How
Cultural Insights and Language Skills in Logistics
00:02:32
Speaker
did you choose this of all industries?
00:02:35
Speaker
If you're going to start back in the beginning, I think the core piece there is I've always had an interest in international culture and languages and just international trade. I've always liked the business side of things. Some of my first few jobs were the sales pieces there. But actually what got me into it originally is I actually joined the military back in what I think it was 21, 22 years old.
00:03:00
Speaker
And I spent the next four years of my life learning Mandarin from the military. So they actually sent me to Defense Language Institute, taught me Chinese for two years straight. So it was one of those intensive courses of seven hours a day, three hours of homework a day, 40 vocab word tests every single morning on different pieces there, which was amazing. So I did that. And then I spent the next couple of years doing some work and translation work.
00:03:28
Speaker
It's pretty much a translation gig for the military before I went to reserves and went on the outside there. So that Mandarin piece is definitely what pushed me. As soon as I got out, I wanted to use it. I wanted to utilize it. And I had some interest in logistics already. Some friends and family that were working in the domestic side of logistics on LTL, FTL, and I just had an interest of diving into the international piece of that.
00:03:57
Speaker
And so I went hunting and I found a company that would help me learn all that. How do you think that your kind of journey through this, like how much of a leg up has that been? Because most of us just sort of assume that everyone else is going to convert to English when it comes to international trade, because that's how the bills of lighting are written, right? So like, how has that affected you?
00:04:19
Speaker
It's been major, so I'd say a few areas. Number one, just the connections I've been able to make here in the USA. For example, one of my main mentors, that was the first job. The first logistics real job that I took, one of my mentors was Taiwanese. He spoke great English, lived here for years and years, but we immediately connected on that piece.
00:04:42
Speaker
This is a couple years right after the school, so I was very aggressive with wanting to use my Mandarin whenever possible. So, I gotta say, I helped build a relationship with Paul, my mentor, and if you recognize the name, this is the same Paul for my first job that called me to come on to Panda Logistics now.
00:04:59
Speaker
That connection i made there was great and then obviously the connections with everyone overseas specifically china and type one there i do notice it is a reoccurring theme even when i'm working with our singapore agents some occasionally in vietnam and other areas throughout asia.
00:05:17
Speaker
if they don't speak english great chances are they probably also speak mandarin so it is a very popular language there but right off the bat the leg up that you asked about because i was on the sales i started in a sales role luckily i found a company where i took a huge pay cut but i came on and i was like i just want to shadow
00:05:37
Speaker
every department, import office, export, customs, trucking, dispatch, accounting for a minimum of two to three weeks each before I dive into sales. And they allowed me to do that. And so I was able to learn all the different pieces of the industry before diving into a fresh sales role as a brand new person into the logistics industry.
00:06:02
Speaker
And then once I had that knowledge and utilizing the Mandarin and like I said, it was at that time I was very much trying to use Mandarin 100% of the time if I could and taking the time. So I was actually did learn to speak Mandarin and read and
00:06:18
Speaker
Right a little bit, but mostly type. I could type it out using Pinyin so I could type out. So obviously using WeChat with our overseas or at least our China and Taiwanese agents. But that's the leg up that I think it gave me as I immediately built great relationships with them.
00:06:35
Speaker
Obviously I'm trying to find customers here, but the relationships I've built with all those agents immediately gave me that leg up where, hey, they've got this, you know, American fluent speaking English person who they can really communicate with. So I would get referrals from those agents or that could really use the Mandarin and push them for extra negotiates and better pricing there. So you just touched on something else that's interesting.
Understanding Logistics and the Need for Modernization
00:07:01
Speaker
I think it'll segue us into a little bit of a conversation about tech also, but
00:07:05
Speaker
You mentioned going in and, you know, even though you didn't say grow up inside the industry, learning all the jobs, right? And touching the things. And one of the things that I work with with our sales team at Chain is that people in this industry want to buy from people who have done the work or at least who can empathize and understand the work. Yeah. There are others who take a view that, you know, sales is sales and that it doesn't matter what you're selling and, you know,
00:07:35
Speaker
sell me this pen and it's the old cliche, right? You should be able to sell anything. Where do you fall on that? Riff on that a little bit for me. Yeah. That's a great question. The big piece. Number one, you hit the idea of learning all the areas. That was the first interest that I had is what are the main obstacles, import. For example, I was trying to come at it at the idea of, I had friends that were talking about starting some import company and doing things. I was coming at it with the idea and the perspective of
00:08:05
Speaker
from fresh eyes, what are the main obstacles you're going to run into? You know, HTS codes and the different pieces of duty and what to expect. What's the chances of customs exam? What do you need to have in place? You know, bonds and power of attorney, you know, first diving into and learning those different pieces there.
00:08:26
Speaker
I can say and part of this piece and i think related to this question is i notice i learned that fairly well and got pretty confident in that area over the first three to six months fast learner i love to make out on topics and become obsessed with topics.
00:08:44
Speaker
But I realized, you know, eight, nine years ago that these e-com sellers, Amazon sellers were constantly reaching out to me. You know, I'd find these new guys where they had no idea how to dive into the world of being an importer of record and the world of international freight.
00:09:02
Speaker
So that is one area i really decided to specialize in initially that's what took me in this area so one thing i'm very much enjoyed it i've got some long long time customers was working with these new sellers and i said go for the big customers as well but these new customers were a.
00:09:21
Speaker
Great learning area for me, but of learning how to teach these customers on how do you become an importer? What are the things that you need to have in place? How to vet your HDS code? Is this a product that's going to be subject to FDA? Making sure to confirm that your supplier is FDA registered, making sure your company is. There's a lot of little tricks you can do.
00:09:44
Speaker
A good little analogy of an HDS code analogy that I like is simply when you're bringing in a product, there are so many different ways to save on duty. The broker's job is to make sure that you're selecting the most accurate HDS code for that product. However, say you're bringing in a table.
00:10:05
Speaker
First of all, is this a plastic table or a wood table? Say it's a wood table. Is this table? Now you've got the product, what it's made out of, but what is it going to be used for? Is this going to be a dining room table that we're going to eat on? Or is this going to be a conference room table that's going to be used for office and business? Just that analogy there can give you the description of the use, can completely change what the product is and what the code is going to be used for. Is this a desk or a table?
00:10:34
Speaker
They can be the exact same product, but that use can change the HTS code and can vary how much duty you're going to pay. So there is one accurate thing, but getting the full details of what it's going to be is to find out that HTS code there. But going through the process and teaching the customers, I loved that. And it really helps me specialize in that area there in the beginning.
00:10:57
Speaker
You're talking to a fellow customs nerd. We're going to have to call this hot tariff summer, because I don't know what the order of the airing of these episodes will be quite yet. But either right before or after, I'm talking with Amy Morgan from Altana, who's also just a massive automated AI-based classification nerd, too. So apparently, we're going to spend the summer on the Chain IO podcast talking about my favorite topic in the world, which is tariff codes.
00:11:27
Speaker
We'll spare the audience the deep dive. I'll just share that I once had to sit there an entire hour of managers meeting at a broker that I work for where the primary topic was the difference between loungewear and pajamas.
00:11:42
Speaker
I have passionately into your court that educating an importer on the use of their product is a massively important thing. It really is. Actually, you're going to have to introduce me to Amy. You're talking AI on determining HS codes. That's right up my alley. Well, so you've got a real passion for the tech.
00:12:01
Speaker
Yes. How do you use that in your job? Thank you for bringing me back to that. That is one piece. You talked about what got me into this industry. When I was looking at it, I remember seeing, especially when I was at that first company, was the shock that hit of
00:12:18
Speaker
where this was a very traditional old school industry where I remember I was trying to get them to go on to Office 365, move to a cloud-based email server instead of this dedicated server room. It was pulling teeth just to get them to consider it. One of our managers would, but the owner would not even consider it. Didn't want to change, didn't want to make that switch.
00:12:43
Speaker
A good example of what I always give of this traditional industry that we're in. We still, I don't know if any freight people out here, they've probably heard the term telex.
00:12:53
Speaker
In the industry, we use a telex release. I don't know if other people don't know, telex was before the fax machine. Currently, it's no longer being telexed. It is being submitted an email or just submitted into a system. There is no telex, but that analogy is a good example of how traditional and old school this industry is. We are still using the term before the fax machine.
00:13:18
Speaker
It's just a great example to show that's what got me excited. It's like, wow, like this is, oh, there's so many problems to deal with, but there's so much growth. There's so many new tools coming out every day. Well, just to give you an a sense of appreciation that everything runs in cycles. I get about a 15 year head start on you, I think from just looking at your LinkedIn profile. And, you know, my first day at the first broker that I work for, you know, the conversation I was having was,
00:13:46
Speaker
you know, if we replace these green screens with PCs, we could get attachments on the emails. And if we could get attachments on the emails, you wouldn't have to send these three bankers boxes of files over airborne express every night back to our customer in Europe. We could just email them those files and people were like, that's not a thing that's never going to happen. Yeah. It's the same cycles sort of run generationally.
00:14:15
Speaker
And talking about files, as I remember from my import ops team, switching to a cloud-based TMS that can be used from anywhere with having, you know, OneDrive or having all your files uploaded into a TMS. We actually recently switched to Go Freight. They've been great. But just any cloud-based TMS that you're talking about files, I don't know if you've seen the import operations person where they have their files, their folders sitting next to them.
00:14:45
Speaker
in the order of operation of how to process. We're printing everything. I've still got a couple operations that just won't pull away from that and it's okay for now as we're implementing these tools. But I finally have got about 90% of our team where they fully switched away from the printing every single page and the file system and they're using cloud-based or uploading it to the TMS and you have everything in there. It's serving the same purpose.
00:15:11
Speaker
I mean, that's a small, small example of the changes with tech that you can make here. It's a huge thing, though. I mean, I remember those vertical files on everyone's desk. That was a standard issue. And I mean, do you think that going through the lockdowns helped you with that or was it
00:15:29
Speaker
kind of already happening or, you know, where were people had to work remote? A hundred percent. So I was already working on it before that with our company. And that's where, you know, Paul, when he brought me on, he had the same exact, you know, idea. He actually is an ex computer programmer, like you see the owner of a computer programming company. So he was all game for making these tech changes, being as efficient as possible and utilizing that. That said, there's
00:15:55
Speaker
so many different pieces to this tech side. So the biggest area that I can see is, number one, obviously remote workers, you've got to switch. Everyone knows this, everyone who went through COVID understands that you've got to get used to virtual calls, virtual meetings, a way for someone to submit their documents versus handing it over. So you had to move with that. The biggest change that I've seen though is
00:16:19
Speaker
I knew before that having a tracking portal, having these things were the biggest service of value that was missing. For a importer, for anyone that was moving freight, they hire a freight forwarder. The endless idea of trying to get the status of that, yeah, you can go onto the carrier website and maybe get a status of that container.
00:16:41
Speaker
what's the status of the release what's the status of the pickup those were unavailable it's completely missing so we started working with the company you know quick and they were later purchased by the guy and that's helped us build tracking portal.
00:16:56
Speaker
We're working on some other pieces on our own to help take this even further. But the idea is that value of having to check the status and have there is a lot of opportunity there to help and provide that service to customers to not just have to call your forwarder every single time and pray they answer this time. Pray you get someone that speaks English and can help and really answer your questions.
00:17:20
Speaker
or you're sending an email to some overseas agent that's going to help you get that status there. So the biggest piece to answer your question is, I saw the industry make this switch when COVID happened where now everybody understands that need of you need the tracking, you need to have the visibility, all the issues it created, you need that status there. So what's great is now there's a ton of options.
00:17:47
Speaker
for software and tech companies creating and trying to fill these gaps. There's new problems that come along with that though. Well, so let's talk about one of those because one of the things that I hear a lot from my customers that's sort of sitting your seat of making that decision about where to invest is that there's now we went from having no tech to too much tech, right?
Choosing the Right Tech for Logistics
00:18:10
Speaker
And so
00:18:11
Speaker
You know, you've chosen and, you know, I am very familiar with go freight and with quick and what's now Magaia, you know, these are tools that are actually very well tuned to this style of customer that you sell to, right? They may not necessarily be the best tools. If your whole thing was selling, you know, you're going to do, you know, 50,000 containers a year for, you know, these largest customers and it's all ADI and they don't need the portal and this and that. Like, how have you gone about.
00:18:39
Speaker
with your team figuring out what to buy. Yeah, I can tell you know exactly what I'm going through here. So that's where you've got, we've been struggling. There's the idea of the shiny, a new software that looks great, works great. Maybe it does work great, but the other vet that I'm constantly doing is which companies are really going to grow. And I've learned over the years too is vetting those companies to see
00:19:09
Speaker
Especially once you even sign or you get going is finding out and watching very closely for those first few months to see, are they making those changes? Are they growing? Because the point is right now, no one has a perfect product. Nobody has a product that's found all these issues. One thing I say just a day-to-day of our job.
00:19:32
Speaker
is things will go wrong in logistics. We were talking about software. Things will go wrong. There will be that unpredictable thing. If things didn't go wrong, I wouldn't have a job. This would be easy to be a freight forwarder. Our job is to manage all these different pieces from the origin to the destination. We're managing
00:19:53
Speaker
nine to eight to 10 different companies from the trucker, customs broker, ocean freight, customs broker here, other trucker, maybe a warehouse, maybe the distribution truckers are using. So there's all these different pieces. Yeah, we might own some assets, not too many, but some forwarders might own a lot, some forwarders. But in the end, the job of a freight forwarder definitely has evolved a bit. You can focus in on that in the OCC ocean freight, but it has evolved to
00:20:22
Speaker
where you're a freight management company. You're trying to provide that service. That's my big goal is trying to show customers where we can be their logistics department. You mentioned the idea of you've got some customers where you're focusing in on those individual levels.
00:20:39
Speaker
where they're a smaller importer, maybe small to medium size, they're running that 1 to 50 shipments a month. But once you're approaching that 50 shipments a month, you're not wanting to, for example, go into the system and book every single individual 50 shipments. You want to confirm a rate period.
00:20:58
Speaker
So that's something we're working on as well as building some new software to confirm that rate period and finding those issues. The other thing is you're not going to want to go in and track every single shipment, but having that so, you know, obviously.
00:21:12
Speaker
Automated Excel, that's an easy solution if you've got tracking. Terminal 49 has been an amazing resource lately for us. We've got some new carriers that they're sometimes missing, but they react pretty quickly to the changes, but it provides us great tracking data from carriers and ports and terminals.
00:21:34
Speaker
that we can pull in, utilize internally, and provide that service to those customers there. In the end though, the pieces is you've got certain softwares that are great, they work good, stand-alone, but then trying to get them to work with our CRM, with our accounting, with our TMS. So for that flow to work and then to display all that information to customers has been challenging.
00:22:02
Speaker
If only there was some supply chain integration company that did it for a living. From your side, you guys, you're trying to connect the dots between these, but then one company, they're motivated, they're great, and the problem is they all need to grow. You need to have tools, all these software companies that you've connected to,
00:22:25
Speaker
that are also willing to grow because, like I said, it's logistics. There will be problems. We have not. Absolutely. Everyone just discovered the need for all of these things a few years ago with COVID. Finally, everybody is on board for improving the industry, but we have a long ways to go to get there on that piece. What problem do you wish someone was solving that nobody's solving for you today?
00:22:53
Speaker
I mean, really what I wish someone is solving, and this is a hard ask, is on the whole picture. And that's that piece, providing that value to customers, to where they can get the whole picture with quoting, with tracking, with being confident on the service, but having that connected fully to ATMS that is geared for us, unless I'll just talk about this personally, is geared towards our primary business of
00:23:21
Speaker
NVOCC air freight forwarder and on that area there. I've seen pieces of that. I've seen people attempt pieces of that. They'll all be great on the warehouse or maybe from an importer point of view, but from our freight forwarding side point of view. I found little connections and little pieces. That's where I have to talk with you guys a little bit of trying to make these connections between a company that's doing great there
00:23:47
Speaker
Honestly though, what I can say the biggest problem that I'm running into now is all of these softwares are unfinished. I have the vision or I have the idea in my head of for our industry forwarding of how exactly these need to work. The problem is what I'm seeing is some of them are great and you're great when you're using the point is they got to move quickly.
00:24:12
Speaker
It is a now, and I know that a lot of these software companies out there will see this and say this that are focusing on the logistics world. It's a race. It's a race right now to see who can really create it and who can really get it done.
00:24:27
Speaker
And the problem I see is they're running into that business model mindset of we only can grow when we're in the green, but we have to make money to use that money to put it towards developments or whatever it is, or maybe we get some investors and we've spent that money and we got to show the investors now we are making money on what we spent. The problem is it's not something you can just fix in one year. This is something that you're going to need to spend three to five years.
00:24:53
Speaker
And some companies started three, five years ago, but the problem is I saw it slow down. And that's where I really want to light a fire under people. This is the time. Take advantage. Keep it moving. Don't get excited because you just made some one little piece of the product and you can sell it and you're making a ton of money. Finish it. Finish the product. Finish that whole working picture because that's really the huge value that we will gain in straight forwarders, but that value will trickle down to all the importers.
00:25:24
Speaker
And I think that leads to this really interesting question of whose responsibility is it to finish the puzzle, right? Because there's a few amongst some software companies and a lot of software investors, their job is to sell a very targeted thing, that different company, and then the job of the freight forwarder is to assemble those Legos into something unique. And there's others who, you know, say,
00:25:54
Speaker
No, our job is to sell you one piece of software and it is the only piece of software you will ever need. And, you know, like this is the, you know, the cargo wise model as example, right? Which is they will come in and say, use this one thing and it is our responsibility to put all the pieces together. And so this push and pull of
00:26:14
Speaker
You know, sort of best in class versus best to breed, I think is the kind of cliche consultant term for it. And it sounds like you want a little bit of both there, right? You want very good targeted software, but you want it all to be a little more robust so that it, so you can get it together. Is that.
00:26:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. And to answer in my mind, this is the software developed. This is your responsibility to get this done. That said, to get this done right, you need somebody like me, maybe someone like you, who I can tell from your experience and background too, that works in this industry, that knows and sees not just the rate puzzle
00:26:54
Speaker
And then please don't stop. And that's what I'm seeing with the software is like, don't stop. Keep that momentum going. Don't stop when you've made some profits and you've got a product that sells. We need to finish that whole picture there. So for that puzzle, honestly, what I've kind of realized is where I'm doing it, I'm trying to take this into my own hands.
00:27:16
Speaker
It's find guys like me that are in the industry that are dealing with it. We're trying to build some other tools to fill some of the gap that we're finding. Honestly, the call to action for companies I'm using, other companies that I've been talking to and vetting, you've got six months to a year to step it up. Otherwise, I'm going to do this on my own.
00:27:42
Speaker
For all of you software companies listening, there's your shot across the bow. So time to get moving, I guess. Exactly. They're all doing great. There's great things, but don't stop that momentum. This is a constant thing. No one's perfect yet at this. So we really got to, we just got to keep it going. I mean, we're not far off. We're one to three years away from a product that does cover all those areas, at least from my side and from the importers that I'm working with.
00:28:10
Speaker
So we got time for about one more topic. I'm just going to put this out there for you, do what you want with it, but just what is the thing you're the most excited about in the industry? I
AI and the Future of Logistics
00:28:21
Speaker
mean, a couple things. So obviously, AI is a great one. It's been an amazing one, optimization with that. So I mean, a simple tool of just seeing on the AI. So I would say on the AI and connecting AI and API connections.
00:28:37
Speaker
So the idea of being able to utilize some of the best tools out there with a simple API hub through you, through Zapier, through all these tools, Zapier is much smaller level, but it's not difficult anymore to even set up our own API connection in some areas.
00:28:56
Speaker
Hence, so the main area that I'm excited about is being able to utilize all those. AI is a great one, just OCR, a simple one. OCR PDF AI technology is outstanding. The idea of where we're receiving tens of thousands of documents every month or maybe week on these documents here, those can be all automated and digitized into a format and can just save a lot of time and make us much more efficient.
00:29:25
Speaker
People have talked about the idea of that's going to take away people's jobs, but the idea is right now we have gone into a downturn. The amount of international freight moving around the world has taken a huge dive over the last six to 12 months here.
00:29:42
Speaker
So the point is, is for freight forwarders, we've moved out of that stage where there was all these logistical problems.
Challenges and Strategies in Logistics
00:29:50
Speaker
So because there's logistical problems, we were able to charge more for our service because we had more problems to deal with. We had more business we knew what to deal with because there's problems happening. But the problem is there is we got a little spoiled with that. And other forwarders did too, where now it's back to where we were three, five years ago.
00:30:11
Speaker
where it is a price competitive market, you've got to run efficient and effective. So the business, freight forwarding world, we don't make a lot of money. You make a small little percentage on every single shipment. You make a small percentage on every service within that shipment that you make.
00:30:31
Speaker
So the idea is we got to be as effective as possible. I can tell you on our first one to three shipments for a customer, we lose money. All the time that me and my team and everyone has to put in, we've spent every dime of profit we've made and we've lost. So we make money off long-term relationships. So being as effective as possible, utilizing that AI to make it so you're quick, your team is efficient, they're able to
00:30:57
Speaker
run more, they have a better life. They're not having to do the monotonous work of plugging in data. They're actually able to spend their time solving problems where if you're in logistics, you know the only way you like to do logistics is if you like to solve problems. People will geek out on that piece there.
00:31:21
Speaker
didn't know about things like customer acquisition cost payback periods when I was a broker. I know of them now that I'm in the software industry and that's a much more common terminology, but I would imagine the brokers that I've worked for in my career, very high end, high touch. We often would, if you really looked at it, probably had a year CAC payback on some of these customers, because we would spend years building relationships. And if you really took all of that investment, you know, you've got to make sure that you deliver service.
00:31:50
Speaker
Yeah. Whether it's good times are bad because if you're going to spend a year's worth of investment.
00:31:55
Speaker
to get someone and you're going to make a ton of money for the 19 years that follow that first year, you better not lose them in that first year. Exactly. That's actually a great way to end our conversation here a little bit is that topic of customer retention. That's the whole thing that I'm all in on. That's what I love about this industry. Like I mentioned, my early 20s before,
00:32:21
Speaker
I did the sales, but nothing is worse than selling a product you don't believe. For every freight forwarder out there, this service is a lacking area. That said, that's been my whole focus. We've got a tracking portal. We've got a great account management team focusing on that, but to build that customer retention, build that faith in, hey, this is a service, not just for us, but
00:32:48
Speaker
That's where I see the huge opportunity on the software side. It's like, guys, whoever can do this has such a huge opportunity. And then obviously the first freight forwarders to take it on benefits as well. But building that faith in customers where they can hire you as your logistics department, they've got all the data they ever need. They have visibility so they can trust that you're not ripping them off. It's unfortunately for it does happen in this industry.
00:33:12
Speaker
where you get taken advantage, straightforward, makes a mistake, and they hide it. That's the piece there. I love what our portal does now where it shows it so that way customers can see. If we clear customs late, you can see. It was our fault. You can see those pieces. That customer retention thing, and you're right that there's
00:33:37
Speaker
The software needs to be there, but also I think forwarders and brokers and the like need to really rethink what they mean by that. Or there's an opportunity to evolve past just thinking about everything as like responding to an RFQ.
00:33:53
Speaker
Or the other side of it, which is, am I ready for the QBR? Right. Like it's ending. You never think about it. Q and then like every three months you have the QBR, if it's a big customer, but you don't think about holistic customer service for like those 85 days in between. And that's a, um, you know, you're right. I don't think there's a lot of software in the industry that has really kind of captured.
00:34:20
Speaker
a holistic view of your relationship with the customer versus rates. Rates is only a very small piece of that. Exactly. That's actually a really, really good point there. The idea of... Actually, I'm happy with this conversation. You're spiking just a new little... The idea of customers, freight forwarders, we used to have the idea of it was fast. I don't know if you've ever dealt with co-loaders any, they just respond, they don't care about the service.
00:34:48
Speaker
point was is they couldn't because the profit was low. The profit was so low and it's very low, especially previous. It was very low. There wasn't problems. Everyone was fighting over $10, $20 here and there, switching this cup.
00:35:04
Speaker
Forwarder has a container at $15 less, they leave you. That was the industry you worked in before. But the point there is you've hit on a key thing where now we're finally switching to an industry where we've maybe got the tools, the technology out there. We've got some of that AI out there to help make us more efficient. That way we can focus in and spend our time as straightforwarders
00:35:31
Speaker
is a free management service and being there for the customers to ask their questions deal with the problems that provide that excellent customer service that they're really wanting because most customers they're willing to pay a little bit more for you to deal with the problems for them so they can focus on growing their company and if they grow we can grow and then if they
00:35:54
Speaker
grow, and then we can, and they buy co-service, then they're going to stay with us. And like we said, we lose money for the first three to six months maybe, depending on the customer and what blame we're running. And if we can keep them for the next 19 years and they're relying on us to help for all their logistical needs, that's the end goal.
Conclusion and Call for Software Innovation
00:36:13
Speaker
But it's cool because it is a great point. I don't think the freight forwarding industry could have done that.
00:36:18
Speaker
previously, but with the new technology and connections being made and bringing in that puzzle, now it can maybe switch gears to focus on that side. Awesome. Well, I think that's an awesome place for us to wrap. It's a really good time for the conversation. So thank you again so much for being here and look forward to maybe getting it back in the future as I have a feeling you and I have a whole different conversation in six months about how everybody's done. So again, thanks for being here.
00:36:46
Speaker
Of course. Thank you for having me, Brian. And yeah, like I said, I'm excited to see where things are at six, 12 months from now. All right. Thanks so much, Eric, for what was an awesome interview. As you can all tell, we could have gone for probably three or four hours there between the two of us. And I think we just scratched the surface.
00:37:06
Speaker
Again, to summarize, I think the takeaway that I had there was that we as software providers, all of us, have to make sure that we're really keeping an eye on what the customers really need, and not just the freight forwarders, but also their customers, the shippers. So again, thanks so much to Eric for bringing his view to that. In general chain IO news, please make sure to check out the blog, especially to all those software companies out there that maybe
00:37:33
Speaker
have wanted to work with us in the past and haven't had the opportunity. Our new open connect platform that lets you build your own connections to our APIs is really getting a lot of traction. And we're really excited about that. And to everyone else, tons of industry news out there. And I will look forward to talking to you all next time on supply chain connections.