What is the level of freight forwarding services in Poland? Which elements do customers rate the lowest? What should freight forwarders change? Finding answers to these questions was the goal of a customer satisfaction survey for freight forwarding services, which was conducted in the fourth quarter of last year. Measuring service quality has always been difficult, which is why more and more methods are being developed to solve this problem. The described research used two methods: Servqual and CSI (Customer Satisfaction Index). The article presents both the analysis of the results and the method of obtaining them based on the applied techniques.
The research subjects were business entities that, due to the nature of their operations, use the services of freight forwarding companies. The research was conducted on a randomly selected group of enterprises that have different scopes of operation, come from various industries, and have uneven market shares. The presented research illustrates the quality of the freight forwarding services market in Poland. To achieve the goal, as mentioned, two methods were used: CSI and Servqual. The choice of these methods was determined by the type of research conducted and the specificity of the analyzed area, which is the freight forwarding sector.
Quality of service research using the CSI methodThe technique for implementing the CSI method included both survey-based research and in-depth telephone interviews. This was due to the multitude of open-ended questions the study contained, and consequently, the large amount of information that employees of the surveyed entities often did not have time to provide for obvious reasons. The study consisted of two parts, between which there was a slight time gap, averaging 14 days depending on the company’s availability:
-
exploratory research, the goal of which was to determine the most important criteria for customers of freight forwarding companies,
-
diagnostic research, used to assess the quality of freight forwarding services based on the criteria defined in the first study.
For a freight forwarding company, one of the most important aspects of the service is delivery punctuality; meeting this requirement is sometimes very difficult due to factors beyond the forwarder’s control, such as the punctuality of the subcontractor. Another element of the service, appreciated by everyone, is the price, which in the era of the global crisis tends to deviate from customer expectations. The quality of transshipment work is also quite important, but in this case, it depends almost entirely on the subcontractor with whom the forwarder cooperates or the transshipment company. Forwarders pay little attention to cargo monitoring in transit, which is not insignificant in the case of transporting high-value cargo. Based on the exploratory research, the most important elements of the freight forwarding service from the customer’s satisfaction point of view were identified. The surveyed entities considered the following to be the most important:
-
service price
-
timeliness of execution
-
quality of loading work
-
customer commitment
-
professionalism of forwarders
-
process documentation (including accurate invoicing)
-
ability to act in emergencies.
Taking into account the results of the exploratory research, the next part of the CSI study took place, the so-called diagnostic phase. The level of customer satisfaction was determined, and the final results were presented in the form of pie charts (Figures 1 – 6). During this phase, the same customers answered six questions used to evaluate the following elements:
-
general level of freight forwarding services provided
-
punctuality of deliveries organized by forwarders
-
quality of freight forwarding consulting
-
quality of documentation prepared by freight forwarding companies
-
price level for freight forwarding services
-
situation of cargo damage during transport.
The article comes from the journal “Logistyka” 4/2009.