When it comes to your company’s expenditures, the return you get on your investment is key, and if you are as obsessed with ROI as we are here at King Solutions, you definitely want to know how well your 3PL is performing for the money that you have invested in their services.

At King, we are constantly reevaluating our performance in order to invest our time and money more efficiently, thus better serving our clients. Between the technology that we adapt to, the data we analyze and the solutions we provide, the return we give on our client’s investments is better than ever.

So, how can you tell if the investment in your 3PL is worth your money?

It’s all about carrier performance. But, the question becomes, how do you track it?

First Off, Demand Visibility
This doesn’t mean that you should immediately send a strongly worded letter to your carrier demanding that they surrender all of their data, but you should be receiving reports at least quarterly (month to month is even more ideal). Carriers that are performing well are going to publish their metrics for their clients to see. Those who aren’t have something obvious to hide.

It is your right as a client to know how your carrier is performing, and if they are not being upfront with their metrics, you should ask for them.

Know Your KPIs, Or Get Lost in a Sea of Data
Once you have more data than you can shake a USB stick at, it becomes essential for you to establish a means for determining what metrics pertain the most to your ROI.

Some of the sets of data that you can look at are the:

Cost per unit shipped
Time spent in transit
Percentage of claims
Percentage of truckloads utilized
Billing accuracy

Are You Getting Your ROI?
Ideally, you want to match the cost per unit shipped with your net sales, ascertaining whether or not it is economically sustainable for you to continue with your current carrier based on their pricing.

The time spent in transit and the percentage of claims are both good indicators of how well your carrier is handling your goods and how happy your customers will be with the end product and service (i.e. are they getting good quality materials quickly).

The percentage of truckloads utilized is an excellent way to determine whether or not you need to consolidate your truckloads in order to cut down on costs.

Look For Innovation, Look For Reliability
The best 3PL providers innovate with the times, adding new technology and services to their already impressive list of traits.

Does your carrier use RFID tracking software or wearable technology? Do they provide tracking and other metrics to your shipments? King Solutions guarantees your ROI and shows you how we reach it by keeping you in the loop on our performance. Let us help you increase your ROI by giving us a call today.