Here as a story from one of our clients, fortunately delivery was successful and no major events happened, but take a look at how small insignificant details can be very significant and ruin a smooth transport.
We received a call from John, a customer that owned a car shop and small dealership in Orlando. He needed to ship a Jeep Cherokee into the port in Camden, NJ for a customer that had just bought the car overseas and needed the car moved. One of his main concerns was to get the car in time to NJ to make it to the ship and also the price as he was shopping for his customer.
John had already attempted to ship to the port in Los Angeles, CA to ship from there, but coast to coast auto shipping costs from Orlando were out of his customers budget by hundreds. He also attempted to move the car closer to the Jacksonville Port with a local auto shipper from Orlando, but unfortunately his customer didn’t have any ship to bring the car to him from there. His customer had also requested an enclosed carrier if possible to safeguard the car as much as possible. Unfortunately enclosed auto shipping rates from Orlando or anywhere else are more expensive as they offer more security and protection to vehicles on the road. Picky customer he got in his hands, fortunately we were there to help.
First of all we helped his customer understand that although enclosed carriers offered more protection for a car, the price will also be higher, the best way to go price wise would be an open carrier, as open carrier shipping from Orlando would be a lot less expensive. Moving on to the next issue, time flexibility; we made him aware that pickup and delivery times are as accurate as possible, however they are only estimates as many things can happen along the way and delay schedules, still we would do our best to have the car there in time to be shipped. Now that we had all these details taken care of, we started booking the order with all contacts and addresses.
For our delivery contact, we were provided the name of the agent that had helped John’s customer book the spot in the ship, and were told to contact him once driver was there to deliver. John advised car was going into the lot for the company to late be taken to the ship and at no point would the driver have to go in the actual port to deliver, therefore no TWIC card was needed. Everything was set to go, car was picked up on time and both John and his customer were happy. Then on the day on of delivery we received a call from an aggravated driver that could not deliver the car because contact person at delivery did not answer. We immediately called John for assistance and he provided us the main number for the shipping company. We provided the name of contact person and no one knew who he was. This complicated things a lot as driver could not wait any longer. We were 2 days in advance for the ships departure date so time wise we were not worried.
Driver ended up taking car and moving on to his next delivery which luckily was nearby and advised that due to the delay and inconvenient there would be a charge of an extra $50 in order for him to be able to deliver in the port as delivery contact person was nowhere to be found. We informed John, who immediately jumped and got upset. Unfortunately this issue was to be resolved with his customer as incorrect information was provided. We had a day t resolve this towards our customers best interest, however we take care of our drivers as well and need to mediate between both our driver and customer.
One day later we managed to contact John’s customer and explained the situation. At this point the hassle to attempt communication with John had become impossible and we started to work towards our driver’s best interest as our customer seemed to show no interest to fix this issue. Once we spoke with John’s customer the owner of the car he understood and agreed to pay the extra $50 as he himself could not contact anybody at the shipping company in order to receive the car and his last option was to deliver straight to the port. Once car was delivered the driver called to thank us for resolving this issue for him p0romptly. John finally called back and also thanked us as his customer was happy for the service and prompt delivery. John has been one of our regular customers ever since, and as usual always has picky customers, but with a smile we board each adventure he provides us.