Before picking new forwarding software always talk onboarding
Third party configuration and instruction doesn’t make it
Freight forwarding software is a tool with many facets to it. Do you get all the guidance and support for feasible configuration, and is your team getting all the instructions they need to use it efficiently? Are your contacts members of the vendor’s staff or contracted external service providers?
We understand that freight does not stop, shipments need to move rapidly, and minimizing your downtime and getting you onboarded smoothly is key. To help ensure your adoption of Scope is quick and easy, we devise tailored onboarding plans and put together a collection of materials and have all the support you need to help you with learning Scope.
Our onboarding process, conducted by our own inhouse teams, is designed to meet the needs of our customers. It enables us to provide world-class service by helping you understanding your software needs first and then implementing solutions to meet and exceed your customer's expectations.
Efficient freight forwarding starts with successful onboarding
We want to make sure that your system does exactly what we promised it will do. We will appoint a project manager to you that will be available to answer all of your questions during the course of onboarding. The project manager will be responsible for the system configuration, scheduling the instructions and setting a go-live date with you. Their goal is to guide you through the process and develop a custom plan that meets your team's needs.
After an introduction kick-off meeting, the onboarding starts. As you progress through the onboarding process, different members of our team will help guide you through the phases. From new system setup requirements and configurations to fully onboarded and then after that.
As a diligent freight forwarder you want to leverage your software’s capabilities to the max
The first step is the system configuration phase. The project manager will go through all the setup features and review them with you and answer all questions and concerns. By the end of this phase, you should have a very good idea of what the system can and can't do, what you need and don’t need, while at the same time we will have a detailed understanding of how you want to use Scope. This includes next to the technical and general Scope setup specific requirements such as accounting and billing, mandatory interfaces, and will find its peak with the go-live planning and date. The project manager will put together a schedule with you and set your go-live date. It's crucial that the system instruction is close to the go-live date to get the most out of it.
Instruction is the key to master all facets of your freight forwarding software
Once you and the project manager have agreed upon all the system customizations needed and you sign off on your system, phase two is to develop and implement an instruction plan.
Our philosophy towards instruction is that we instruct the instructors. We like to instruct smaller groups that ideally include managers or supervisors. As this group is the ones that are expected to solve the day-to-day operational problems, and they are also the ones that have the authority to implement the changes Scope can offer to improve your workflows. Their feedback often cuts straight to the needs of their teams and will allow us to show exactly where the big payoffs are in Scope for the whole department.
Though we do our very best to catch them all in the configuration phase, it is not uncommon to find additional system setup needs that may prove to be required to meet a specific operational process of a team. Because we are working with the instruction material, we still can make changes to the system without holding up live any shipments but it can postpone the go-live date.
Going live with your new freight forwarding software
This starts on an agreed-upon day and is generally defined as a new shipment gets entered into Scope. Our expectation is that on the first day 80% of shipments can be entered without issue. For the 20% shipment that needs more attention or the ones that fell out of the norm and outside the scope of instruction. We have our customer service team member ready to jump in for those and any issues are quickly resolved.
By the end of the first week, your team should be fluent in Scope and processing most if not all their shipments with ease. However, during the second week, we do keep our customer team available for the odd one-off that might need more attention.
Our experience is that if the first 2 phases are done well the onboarding is smooth. Any issue we find at this point are questions about how to customize specific items to allow for better service to the forwarders customers.
We like to do a follow up a few weeks later to make sure everything this is as it should be and if so that concludes the onboarding. Your Riege contacts will be available ever after though.