Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/66147
Shipping continued tomers that accessorials are not includ- ed in shipping and handling charges unless they're requestedwhen the order is placed—and provides much-needed insurance when the freight bill arrives weeks or even months later. A carrier has up to 180 days to issue an under- charge, saysWalsh. Adding even more padding to shield it fromexceptions,the storage company then turned to the carrier to help it bring order to the chaos in the field. Now, if a customer requests a service not specified on a shipping receipt, the carrier is instructed not to perform the service—but also gives the customer the option of paying for the service at the time of delivery. Internally, Arrowtries to take some of the guesswork out of the process by automatically tying accessorial charges to certain products in its product library, (a common practice in E&S as well), and it also reviews its freight bills Sticking to its roots, Wasserstrom Restaurant Supply favors a more traditional model to handle its customers' online shipping needs, recognizing that even in the ecommerce game many of its customers still prefer the fullservice treatment. once a week using Newgistics' Data Matching service to keep an eye on exceptions. "Prior to that, " says Kass, "we had a clerk auditing our freight bills and catch- ing discrepancies hinged on whether they were tracking it correctly or sharp enough to zero in on the errors. Visibility and having the ability to use automatic data matching to audit our bills has definitely been a big advantage in our efforts to control exceptions. " It Still Comes DownTo Service Sticking to its roots, Wasserstrom Restaurant Supply favors a more tradi- tional model to handle its customers' online shipping needs, recognizing that even in the ecommerce game many of its customers still prefer the fullservice treatment. To that point, high-touch is encouraged throughout the ordering process and 50 plus dedicated customer service reps are on hand to answer calls generated through ecommerce sales. Many of the reps have at least five years of industry experience and some as many as 15, says Wasserstrom's Vice President of E-commerce Dale Edman, who also notes that staffers receive extensive training in smallwares and continued on page 36 May/June 201 2 35