Front Sees Momentum with Logistics Customers Amid Continued Global Supply Chain Disruption

SAN FRANCISCO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Front, a leader in customer communication, today announced continued momentum with customers in the global logistics industry, including three of the largest independent shipbrokers in the world and industry leaders such as MNX Global Logistics, Estes Forwarding Worldwide, Flexport, Aurora, TRAFFIX, sennder, McQuilling, and more. Front supports logistics customers in increasing revenue and retention as well as improving operational efficiency and team collaboration amid the most significant supply chain crisis in modern times.

“Front has been a game-changer for our business”

Why Communication and Collaboration Matter In The Supply Chain Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted nearly every aspect of the global supply chain and, in turn, has caused a ripple effect of challenges for logistics companies. Historic wait times for ships docked offshore of ports across the world, trucking labor shortages, skyrocketing freight costs — the list goes on. Logistics providers are confronting problems never before experienced in modern global logistics. As a result, excellent customer service has transformed from a nice-to-have to a must-have competitive differentiator. The speed and accuracy with which a company responds to an issue can be the difference between losing a customer and deepening a customer relationship. Logistics providers turned to Front to make their businesses more resilient to disruptions created by the pandemic and to create elevated customer and employee experiences.

According to new research released this week by Front and?The Journal of Commerce, the majority of organizations surveyed (82 percent) cited email as the top communication channel they use to collaborate internally and communicate externally with customers and suppliers. Yet, 70 percent of these organizations reported that the pandemic had impacted their ability to collaborate internally, and 58 percent said issues such as ambiguity around who owns a task created duplicate work. Clearly, traditional email is not an effective or scalable communication channel for these organizations. Ninety percent of organizations reported that global supply chain issues impacted their overall customer experience. Read the full findings of The Journal of Commerce whitepaper commissioned by Front?here.

With Front, logistics customers can:

• Improve revenue growth and retention through faster response times and fewer missed messages.?Logistics companies can tackle high email volumes and reduce the need to triage customer messages manually. By automating the busy work and duplication that comes with traditional distribution lists, teammates can focus on accelerating response times and can minimize the number of missed or stalled conversations.
• Drive operational efficiency and streamline team collaboration.?Shared inboxes with clear assignments and service-level agreement (SLA) monitoring ensure superior visibility and accountability, even across distributed and remote teams. By centralizing customer context, tools, and data into one unified workspace, teams can collaborate with each other like never before, resulting in significant efficiency gains.
• Leverage analytics to elevate the customer and employee experience.?Executives and managers get unparalleled insights at the team, customer, and individual levels. Front Analytics empowers them to make data-driven decisions that improve the customer experience and ensure optimal efficiency amid the supply chain crisis. Front provides logistics companies with real-time insight into communication metrics that have historically been challenging to measure, such as team and individual response times, workflow bottlenecks, customer satisfaction, or SLA adherence.

Comments on the news:

"Global supply chain issues continue to make headlines and dominate boardroom level conversations," said Laurabeth Harvey, chief revenue and success officer at Front. "The pandemic has created a heightened level of urgency for logistics providers to digitize their customer service operations and embrace new technologies to react with more speed and efficiency. Front's product gives organizations unparalleled agility to streamline internal collaboration and external communication channels to better react to the demands of the market and the demands of their customers. We're proud to partner with many of the world's leading logistics providers to enable them to deliver best-in-class customer service and stay ahead in this competitive and rapidly-changing environment."

“Front has been a game-changer for our business,” said?Priority1?President & Chief Vendor Relations Officer Grant Crawford. “Before Front, managing 500-600 emails per day would have been a daunting task for an individual employee. But with Front, it has reduced our employees' stress level, made them more effective at their jobs, and, in turn, has positively impacted Priority1’s customer experience. Front has helped our business be more cost-effective and also helped us attract and retain happy customers.”

“sennder is focused on bringing technology innovation to the logistics market,” said Dr. Claudio Consul, vice president of operations at?sennder. “With Front and its ability to easily integrate with many of the workplace applications we use, we’ve created a 360-degree view of sennder’s customer data and communication channels. Our team relies on Front to take their communication with carriers and shippers to the next level and helps us optimize collaboration between hundreds of teammates.”

“Front has been an incredible asset in our journey to the cloud and McQuilling’s digital transformation efforts,” said Thomas Schmidt, chief technology officer at?McQuilling. “We took a rigorous process when we evaluated onboarding a new communication tool because we needed a product that could give our employees the ability to better collaborate, improve how we communicate with customers and suppliers and most importantly, seamlessly integrate with the other systems we use. Front checked all the boxes for us. It also has given us more flexibility during the pandemic to support employees working from anywhere while still staying connected to their teams.”

About Front

Front is the leading hub for customer communication that allows companies to offer tailor-made service at scale. It combines the simplicity of the email inbox with the automation and insights of a CRM. Behind the scenes, teammates from all departments can work together to send out the best replies faster, keep messages organized across channels, and always maintain a personal touch. Over 7,000 organizations including Shopify, Airbnb, Hulu, Lyft, Mailchimp, and many others leverage Front to scale customer communication without trading quality for efficiency. To learn more, visit front.com.