What’s in this case study?

1. Real world, in-depth cost analysis for freight savings.
2. Breakdown of Freightpros solutions.
3. Summary of Build-A-Sign business benefits.

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As the nation’s leading online source for custom signs and banners and one of the fastest growing businesses in the Austin area, affordable, on-time freight deliveries are a critical component to BuildASign.com’s continued success. Prior to utilizing FreightPros’ suite of transportation management services, BuildASign.com was using a well-known national broker to handle all of their freight service needs. Initially, BuildASign.com’s focus was primarily on obtaining optimal pricing for shipping their product. As they were already receiving extremely competitive pricing, there initially appeared to be little room to help the company reduce their freight spend. However, an in-depth freight analysis revealed some huge back-end freight costs that the business was absorbing. Scott Faust, Chief Operating Officer at FreightPros recalls how his team was able to unlock unrealized savings for the prominent online sign maker, “By looking at the invoices that BuildASign.com was receiving from their original broker, we were able to determine that many of the freight carriers were automatically applying a residential delivery fee accessorial to each of BuildASign.com’s shipments. Because of the way BuildASign.com processes their orders online, the contact name was being listed as the business name on the bill of lading, and the carrier was making the assumption that it was going to a residence and charging large additional fees for that service.” FreightPros’ billing auditing service, which is included to its shipping customers for no additional charge, catches and verifies any additional fees to BuildASign.com shipments and ensures that the company is only paying for the actual services used. According to Faust, “We were essentially able to match the extremely discounted freight pricing they were receiving on their freight and then show additional savings, nearly 7% this past quarter, through the billing auditing services we provided. We found additional wins for BuildASign.com as well, once they started using our services.”

Importance of Carrier Selection

FreightPros was able to carefully analyze which LTL carriers were more likely to come back with a residential delivery fee and consult on which initial carrier choice made the most sense based on the variance between the base cost, residential accessorial fee and likelihood of a residential fee being applied. Additionally they also did an analysis to figure out which carrier options in their chosen freight lanes had the least amount of issues related to the normal transport of the shipment. This included missed pickups, delivery delays, damage, and other customer service problems that, when avoided, saved time for BuildASign.com on the backend and provided a better experience for their end customer.

Pickup Notifications and Delivery Tracking

FreightPros was able to further reduce headaches and increase soft cost savings through enhanced services that weren’t being fully utilized prior to FreightPros handling BuildASign.com’s freight. “We’ve been able to address their service needs in a proactive way. Rather than BuildASign.com having to come to us, our backend technology and talented service team work in tandem to let the customer know of any delivery delays, pickup issues, or even small errors such as an incorrect phone number on a bill of lading, which could ultimately result in a shipment mishap,” says Faust. Patrick Little, Production Analyst at BuildASign.com validated this service first approach saying, “Besides low rates, FreightPros is a customer first company and BuildASign.com is a customer first company. It’s just that simple.”

Truckload Tracking and On-Time Performance

While BuildASign.com’s previous broker was strong on LTL pricing, they were weak on truckload service and carrier selection. The majority of the loads booked were actually then re-brokered. In essence, there was almost no control or oversight on the actual carrier that was moving their full truckloads. Matt Harrington manages the truckload team at FreightPros and quickly realized the advantages that FreightPros’ truckload service offering could bring to BuildASign.com. “Our reliance on properly vetted, insured carriers, that we’ve had favorable prior shipping experiences with, allow us to deliver a consistent full truckload experience to BuildASign.com on a regular basis. These quality carriers, combined with our automated truckload tracking system, not only give the customer peace of mind, but keep them informed on the status of their freight as it moves point to point throughout the country.”

Download this Freight Paper