Building Trust with Customers through Transaction Visibility and Transparency

As consumers, we tend to think about commerce as the purchase of goods. For businesses, however, service and support behind the sale are often as important as finding the right product at a favorable price.

Without suppliers who are more like partners than just providers, businesses have to devote time and money to purchasing and sales activities that could be applied more effectively elsewhere in their organizations. With suppliers who are service focused, those resources can be used where they’re needed to manage operations, improve efficiency and productivity, and to help grow the business.

What a lot of the support that businesses need boils down to is transparency. In fast-paced and often time-sensitive transportation operations, in particular, the costs of being uninformed can be high. A load that is behind schedule can cause a production line slowdown, a disruption of distribution delivery schedules, and impact sales.

The impact of a lack of visibility and support in trucking operations can be significant. In 2020, according to the American Trucking Associations:

• Trucks hauled 10.23 billion tons of freight, carrying everything from raw materials to finished products to and from suppliers, manufacturers, wholesale distributors, retailers and end users
• The nation’s fleet of 9 million trucks used for business purposes traveled 300.05 billion miles
• Trucks transported 70.9% of the value of surface trade between the U.S. and Canada and 83.8% of the value between the U.S. and Mexico

For those reasons, visibility between shippers, freight brokers and carriers into load status information and in-transit updates is seen as increasingly essential to everyone’s success. To meet those needs, companies have turned to information management technology and applications, and many are enjoying the benefits they bring.

Visibility is especially important in the e-commerce parts market

Without brick and mortar facilities, true e-commerce truck parts providers depend on electronic platforms to interact with and service customers effectively and efficiently. Unlike the sales and ordering portals offered by distributor networks, their customer facing technology goes beyond just providing a better buying experience by allowing customers access to:

• 24/7 online ordering for their round the clock maintenance and repair operations
• A fast and easy means of looking up parts by number, keyword or highly intuitive cross reference engines
• Access to order tracking and purchases histories
• Instant support from highly experienced technically-trained experts

E-commerce parts systems are a key part of a growing trend toward connected solutions that encompass connected trucks and connected service operations. Their visibility tools can be a competitive advantage for both sellers and their customers 

Through information transparency and communications capabilities, e-commerce parts providers have a foundation that provides added value through a higher level of service. From more efficient and productive service operations that improve asset utilization, and even better employee satisfaction, everybody wins when the right technology for sourcing parts is in place.

FinditParts is the largest single-source Internet distributor of heavy duty OEM and aftermarket parts. FinditParts is your partner in keeping your heavy duty truck on the road.