Excel Macros Provide Cost Savings and Keep Customer Happy
In a tight economy, customers seek cost saving initiatives from their logistics service providers and often select service providers based on lower rates while continuing to expect a high level of customer service. In this environment, using Excel Macros to complete routine activities can provide opportunities to pass labor savings to customers and free up time for operations agents to focus on customer service rather than manual data entry.
Recently an Excel Macro was developed which reformats 1,000-line commercial invoices into a format that can easily be uploaded to the TMS and uses previous shipment data to start the classifications of products. Commercial invoice lines that took days to classify and manually enter are now completed in minutes; the operations agent reviews the file for new products and other questions identified and highlighted in red by the Excel Macro and verifies the HTS classification suggested by the macro. Use of the Excel Macro results in 4 additional days each week available for the operations agent to focus on providing excellent service and support additional customers.
Another Excel Macro was developed to save time completing status updates for a daily customer report. Rather than manually search and compare changes to dates or status and identify new shipments to add to the report, the macro completes all changes and additions in minutes rather than hours. The macro highlights exceptions for the operations agent to research. The hours saved each day can be used to address frustrated cargo, provide more accurate comments, and improve customer service.
Are your operations or customer service agents manually updating or arranging Excel spreadsheets for hours each day or each week? Did an agent doing this type of work resign leaving the rest of the team challenged to absorb this manual work? Can we discuss whether an Excel Macro can be developed to free up time to support additional customers or improve customer service?