Auto Shipping: Brokers and Customer Response
Posted by Tom Kearns in Uncategorized, tags: auto, auto shipping, auto transport, automotive, business, cars, logistics, moving, relocating, shipping, transportation, trucks, Uncategorized, vehicle shipping, vehicle transportYou may be interested in a particular company to ship your auto to a distant location and find that they are rather tight about relinquishing certain information, which rightly causes you to be suspicions. Moreover, you are not sure what to ask in order to allay your suspicions. This is why you need the services of a broker. He is able to verify insurance policies, licensing, track records, official documents and records that you can’t get at, as well as the company’s reputation within the industry and with its customers.
A broker will select from a sea of companies, reputable companies of all sizes and with varying services and show them to you for a final decision. It would not be good business sense for a broker to offer you a company to contract with that would not lead to your satisfaction. The broker has better access to the information that concerns you most.
A website worth noting is Transportreviews.com. You can research brokers and companies on the site and aside from what the broker tells you about the company, this site allows to look into customer reviews. You can determine from the site how many cars are shipped per month and compare the number of positive responses with the negative. You will undoubtedly uncover way more positive reviews than negative, because human nature is such that if they have a negative experience, they will deal directly with the company and/or broker to come to a solution. But, at any rate, you can compare the magnitude of the company’s business with the rate of happy customers.
Now, as I have already said, any worthy company works to satisfy customers fully. So that you often may find responses praising the service despite some initial mistake: this is normal customer-company relationship. Still, just as one or two positive responses (which makes for a 100% perfect record on the site) are not proof of reliability, so negative responses are not necessarily a sign of absolute unreliability. Pay attention to the type of complaint (major or minor: the site does not, of course, distinguish these) and to recurrent complaints. A particularly ill-tempered customer may complain even if the company acted in the best way and fully compensated the client.
If you encounter customer complaints of wide variation, this could be very meaningful. A dependable company may have a weak point, or have run into one of those genuine cranks. However, the company that dissatisfies myriads of people in many different ways is a company to avoid.
Nonetheless, customer response is only an early phase of your investigation and one of the very few you can research yourself without a broker. By hiring a broker, you will be able to take advantage of the information he can uncover that you can’t, not just cryptic customer reviews but official documents and records as well as professional experience, industry knowledge and advice. You will avoid the tedious details involved in industry bureaucracy and endless negotiations to set a price. A good broker is an effective negotiator who will save you money while charging a nominal fee, usually between $100 and $200 dollars for their services depending on the complexity and time restrictions your particular job entails.
For more on Car Shipping or Vehicle Transport please visit MetroGistics.
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