Annual Shipper Sentiment Survey, 2016, was carried out by Containerisation International together with Dutch shippers’ organisation EVO. The results of the survey show how shippers evaluate the services they obtain from container lines, what shippers’ concerns are, and what they suggest can be improved.
SERVICE CRITERIA RANKED
While ranking service criteria, availability of cargo space and accurate documentation, were marked as the most important to shippers’ businesses. Carrier financial stability does not get as high. This can be explained by the fact that the study was completed before the collapse of Hanjin Shipping. However, in the years to come, this factor is expected to rank much higher.
SHIPPERS’ CONCERNS
The ongoing concerns of shippers within the container liner industry are still rate instability, market instability and competition:
CARRIERS CAN IMPROVE
While suggesting the room for improvement, a quarter of respondents named reliability as the main area where changes are needed the most. Close to reliability were customer service and communication; and documentation and information – which shows that shippers are still not getting the right format for the documentation despite their efforts to digitise services:
Low service reliability and commitment, poor communication and performance are the issues that would make a shipper consider changing the carrier. However, the main motivator to change the carrier for 40 % of respondents would be a lower cost, and this would be more important than considerations over reliability, and communication and customer services.
Source: Annual Shipper Sentiment Survey, 2016