Do you have to export or import products from or to New Zealand? Then, you would need professionals to handle the process for you.
The professionals you would need for the job are known as "freight forwarders". Their profession entails handling your shipments effectively and quickly. You can read this to learn about the history of freight forwarders. When you hire these professionals, you can relax and rest assured because these experts will handle the entire process.
Other names these experts are called are shipping brokers and forwarding agents. You can decide to hire a company or a consultant. However, in our experience, using a company for this service often makes things a lot easier with the possibilities of issues greatly reduced.
Yet, the choice is yours and whether or not you decide to use a company or a consultant, certain factors must be considered before you hire the service provider.
While you simply need to relax and allow the experts to handle the job, the process of hiring the service provider is one that you have to be deliberate about. This is because several companies offer this service and to separate the good from the bad and ugly, you will need to take your time and properly assess all the services available to you.
Therefore, in this article, we will be discussing some very important factors that you have to consider before you hire a freight forwarding service. Let us get right into it!
1. Services Needed and Offered
This is the first thing that has to be considered even before you start looking for a service provider. The services the company offers should fit your business requirement.
If you hire a service provider that is lacking in any area you need (whether occasionally or not), you may have to get another expert for this area of lack. When this happens, there will be added complexity, extra costs, and efficiency may be reduced.
Based on what you want to ship, your service provider has to be capable of the following:
• Proper insurance
• Clear customs
• Manage inventory
• Pack and keep products in proper storage
• Provide export and import documentation
• Truck transportation.
If you have special needs or services, do not hesitate to let all your potential companies be aware of them. You may not always have needs for the special services, but having a provider that can cater to your needs when it arises would be very beneficial to you.
2. Reputation
In your mind, the service you have found is the absolute best! But we would like to ask you a question. How well do you know that company? Sure, you have taken your time to consider the services they offer, you may have even gone further to learn how they would provide these services.
Yet, is that all you need to know before you hire them? Your answer to that may be yes, but we hate to break it to you that it just isn’t enough.
Before you hire a freight service in New Zealand, you need to find out more about the service you intend to hire. Their reputation should be at the forefront of things you have to know about them.
Learning about their reputation is easy as you can achieve this in several ways. You can choose to ask them for references and find out what their past clients say about the company. Also, you can compare two or more shipping broker services as it regards their reliability.
Learning about the reputation of some companies will help you make your final choice.
3. Experience
Whether you are taking your products out or sending them into New Zealand, one thing is certain; you need the products to get to their destination without being damaged. Those involved in shipping for a long time have all the knowledge to ensure safe and damage-free delivery of your cargo in record time.
Simply put, your shipments will be handled as carefully as possible if you leave the job to experienced forwarding agents. Therefore, the importance of getting experienced people for the job cannot be over-emphasized. Visit https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2019/09/30/freight-forwarders-are-you-adding-value-to-your-customers-businesses/?sh=5ac3f90669e6 to learn more about how freight forwarders can add value to your business.
Aside from being able to ensure the safety of the cargo, experienced forwarding agents know how to avoid delays. They know how to work their ways around certain things like custom or port issues that would otherwise create shipping delays. So, if the time of the cargo arrival is crucial to you, you need experienced people for the job.
Another wonderful benefit you stand to gain by hiring experienced forwarding agents is reduced shipping rates. Since the professionals hired have been in the business for a long time, they will try all they can to make sure that the shipping fees are affordable and reasonable.
They will always act in your best interest and negotiate the rates while also ensuring that the service’s quality is not compromised.
4. Qualifications
Another thing that must be considered is the qualification of the shipper brokers. Remember we said you can rest assured after hiring these experts? Well, this can be only attainable if you hire highly qualified experts.
If the service you hire lacks qualified experts, your shipping may have several delays, troubles, and hindrances that would make relaxing difficult. Therefore, those you hire for the job must be qualified.
Regardless of whether you are doing the shipment for your company or as an individual, you need to have professionals at the helm of affairs. Therefore, you need to ensure you take time to peruse the qualification of the company you intend to hire.
You do not have to stop there; there will be a whole team of professionals. So, you need to go through the qualifications of the members of the team as well.
If the company is reluctant to provide their qualifications, you can save yourself a lot of future stress by walking away. This reluctance may be an indication that they aren’t as qualified or lack the qualifications that would make them suitable for the job.
5. Fees
You will be charged some money for the service; there is no way you can get a paid service without paying for it. However, this does not mean you have to pay an arm and a leg for the service.
Before you decide on the company to hire, spend some time comparing the fees of about two or more services. The fees should not be overly cheap, as this could be a sign that the service you get would be inferior, yet, the fees should be reasonable.
6. Communication
So far, you must have figured out that we expect you to be considering several (about 3 to 5) companies when you want to move freight from New Zealand to another country. Therefore, you will need to interview all the candidates you have streamlined.
At this point, you must have considered all the above factors and the candidates on your list now are those that fit all these factors. Since you have already done your research, the interview is to learn more about the companies. Trust us, there is no way your research will answer all the questions you need to know.
Aside from getting additional information about the company, the interview will show you how a company will communicate with you should you hire them. Communication between you and the company hired has to be direct, straightforward, and as clear as possible.
So, consider it as a warning sign if any of the candidates are not open about how their business is conducted. Furthermore, they should be able to openly and clearly address all questions and concerns you talk about. This way, you can rest assured that communication during the period when the business will be conducted will be great.
Conclusion
When you consider all of these factors discussed in this article, the freight forwarding service you employ will be one you won’t regret.
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