IDEA: Are your shipping personnel ruining your reputation? Do they ignore your customers?

Your shipping personnel speak to your customers every day. How do they treat them or do you know?  They interact with the drivers of your customers who go back to tell their supervisors or the buyers (the ones who give you new sales orders) that your company is screwed up, the warehouse is a mess, your shipping personnel are rude or difficult to deal with and they hate going there to wait forever on lazy employees.  Hopefully those drivers who pick up the goods which your customer’s buyer has ordered returns and tells everyone how friendly your people are, how quick they are to load up new well packaged goods and how easy they are to deal with versus other vendors of theirs the driver has observed.

Suggestions for treating your customers’ drivers well:

• Treat the drivers with respect (as if they were the buyer).
• Make sure the shipping dock is clean and neat at all times.
• Make sure all drivers are greeted courteously and in a friendly  manner.
• Are there accomodations for drivers? Offered coffee? Offered restrooms?
• Are customers given preference over anything else being shipped?
• Is everyone in the shipping department nice to the drivers? Inside and outside personnel?
• Does someone talk to them and tell them what to expect and how long they will be at your facility?
• Did anyone ask if they had problems finding your facility, getting into your facility or any other problems coming to your company today?
• Did anyone thank them for coming and getting their buyer’s order today?
• Have you trained your shipping personnel about how important they behave and treat the customers’ drivers?
• Include their behavior and attitude in their regular employee reviews and reward good behavior. You want to hear compliments back from the customers told to them by their drivers.