Shipping can make or break your business. This is because it shows how well-organized your business is and how much you care about your customers. 

Customers can be unhappy with delays, lost packages, or incorrect tracking information, which can destroy your business.

To keep your customers happy and satisfied, you need to make sure that your shipping process is fast and reliable. To help you out, here are six ways to make the shipping process at your business better and more efficient. 

Work with the right partners.

Choosing the right shipping partners can greatly affect how your business ships its products. Unfortunately, figuring out which carrier is best for your business can be hard with so many options available during the functional sourcing process. 

Thankfully, there are several things you can look out for. 

One of the things to consider is the type of packages that you ship. If you ship small items, you should find a shipping partner specializing in such shipments.

The same thing applies when shipping large items--you need a shipping company specializing in shipping large items. 

You also need to consider their reach. If you ship your products only in your local area, this isn’t an important factor to consider, but if you have customers around the country or even overseas, it’s wise that you work with a company that has the capacity to ship and deliver the products to your customers. 

Before you start working with a shipping company, visit their offices and ask to be taken around. This gives you a better feel of their operations which helps you make an informed decision. As mentioned, you should only work with a partner that best fits your business needs. 

FirstMile is a great partner to work with. They deliver parcels quickly and reliably, and their prices are low. 

Have clear shipping policies.

To improve your shipping process, you must have clear shipping policies. Customers and internal teams, like customer service, sales, and logistics, should be able to easily understand and follow these rules.

When you have clear policies, you ensure everyone knows what is expected of them when shipping orders.

One example of a policy you can have is the processing and handling time policy. This policy specifies the time it takes for your business to process and ship products.

When you have this policy, you make it clear to your customers when they should expect their product. 

You can also have a weight-based shipping policy that calculates the shipping fees based on the product’s weight. 

With such policies, you significantly reduce confusion about order fulfillment times, return and refund processes, the accuracy of package tracking information, delivery fees based on services or locations, and many others.

The policies help keep customers updated throughout the process and make it easier for internal teams to track shipments and give better customer service.

Keep an eye on performance metrics.

For your company’s shipping process to improve, you need to monitor performance metrics and make changes as needed. 

By keeping track of key metrics like service quality ratings, package delivery times, and order pick-up times, you can see the areas you need to catch up or improve.

You then use this information to make changes to your processes or operations to improve the efficiency and overall effectiveness of the shipping process.

While you can monitor many business metrics, not all are relevant to the shipping process. Those that you need to pay attention to include: delivery times, fulfillment costs, service quality ratings, order pick-up times, and more. 

By monitoring these metrics and acting on the information they give, you ensure their shipping process is always smooth and effective.

Make use of technology and innovation.

In the current digital world, which is fast-paced and constantly changing, as a business owner, you need to keep up with emerging technologies and innovations to compete with your competitors. 

This means using new tools and systems that can help improve speed, accuracy, customer satisfaction, and other things.

An automated packaging system is one type of technology that can help your company’s shipping process. 

These systems make use of robotics, automation, and other advanced technologies to pack orders quickly and accurately without relying on manual labor or human error. 

There are also cloud-based tracking software and mobile apps that let customers track their packages in real-time, which can help take your shipping process to the next level.

Work with experienced fulfillment professionals

You will need a highly functional fulfillment system to improve your shipping process. 

For an efficient shipping process, hire skilled professionals who can help streamline fulfillment operations and ensure every shipment is handled with care and precision. 

By hiring dedicated order fulfillment professionals, you get to cut down on mistakes, cut down on turnaround times, and make tracking orders more accurate.

When you work with professionals dedicated to order fulfillment, you have an easy time packing orders, managing inventory, processing returns, answering customer questions, and more. 

If you want your shipping process to go smoothly and quickly, it’s important to hire skilled people who have the knowledge and expertise to handle orders professionally and effectively.

You can have your internal team or hire the services from a third-party company. 

Focus on customer satisfaction.

The key to an efficient and highly functional shipping process is ensuring customers are happy.