Shippers’ top concerns include a lack of transparency on prices and surcharges, transit times, and shipped-as-booked reliability levels, survey reveals.
Customer satisfaction with container shipping has slipped again slightly since last year, a new survey reveals, with shippers’ top concerns including a lack of transparency on prices and surcharges, transit times, and shipped-as-booked reliability levels.
The third annual shipper satisfaction survey by Drewry and the European Shippers’ Council (ESC) revealed that the 249 shippers and forwarders who took part in the survey on average rated the service of container shipping lines with a score of 3.1, which is 0.1 lower than last year’s average rating of 3.2, on a scale from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied). The findings indicate a continuing gradual decline in customer satisfaction in container shipping since the survey was first conducted in 2016.
According to the latest survey, customer satisfaction, based on the service they had received from carriers in 2018, was reported as least favourable for “clarity of prices and surcharges”, “transit times”, and “reliability of booking/cargo shipped as booked”, with each of these elements scoring between 2.8 and 3. The carrier service attributes which shippers were the most satisfied with were carrier financial stability, documentation accuracy, and availability of equipment (containers), which received average scores between 3.2 to 3.4.
All the service features were overall awarded mid-range scores; only 4% of customers were “very dissatisfied” with carrier services and only 6% were “very satisfied”.
Shippers and forwarders also said that carrier performance has deteriorated between 2017 and 2018 in four areas: the range of different available carriers; the range of different available services; the price of service; and the overall carrier service quality. But carrier performance related to sustainability/green and carrier financial stability have improved since 2017, according to the survey respondents.
“The survey results reinforce the opinion already expressed in the recent ESC Position Paper and in the message addressed to the EU Directorate-General for Competition on the Consortia BER that more transparency is needed from maritime carriers,” said Jordi Espin, ESC’s maritime transport policy Manager. “Service levels, performance targets, market improvements, and price structuring should be set with a focus on clarity and an open observation analysis.”
Philip Damas, head of the logistics practice at Drewry, commented: “It is very clear that clarity of prices and surcharges has become a key topic for shippers and forwarders – particularly medium-sized ones. Starting from the 2018 emergency fuel surcharges and continuing with the current uncertainty over post-IMO 2020 fuel surcharges, we expect the conversation between carriers and shippers to remain ongoing in 2019.
“In the short term, carriers ought to be more transparent in their new BAF matrices and formulae and need to address their customers’ growing needs for predictability and visibility of carrier performance in the long run if they want to reach good levels of customer satisfaction.”
Source: Lloyd’s
