For decades, the transportation & logistics industry has grappled with issues like outdated infrastructure, siloed & inaccurate data, disconnected customer experiences, and dissatisfied customers. To add fuel to the fire, the current COVID-19 health crisis has increased customer expectations & changed the regulations, thereby forcing the industry to evolve. Because of this, digitization & globalization have become imperative for the smooth functioning of the industry.  

Salesforce CRM for Transportation & Logistics Industry 

To be able to compete & thrive in this new environment, companies in the transportation & logistics industry need to keep up with the noteworthy transformations in the technology sector. One such technological advancement that the logistics industry experts greatly emphasize is the use of Salesforce CRM. Salesforce gives enterprises from the T&L industry the ability to track their customer’s experience from the initial quote to the delivery fulfillment. 

By connecting all the business processes, like sales, service, marketing, & customer experience, in a single platform, Salesforce helps such enterprises perform all logistics-related operations seamlessly. Building out business processes in Salesforce allows logistics companies to communicate with their customers better, improve the digital infrastructure, and track loads more effectively. Here are some of the top benefits of using Salesforce for the transportation & logistics segment:

• Automation of Complex Business Processes
• Improved Sales & Marketing Operations
• Easier & Seamless Team Collaboration
• Insightful Reporting
• Elevated Customer Services & Improved Customer Satisfaction

In addition to using Salesforce, most third-party logistics companies also leverage different AppExchange applications to better manage their end-to-end business processes. These include popular cloud computing solutions such as Revenova, Lanetix, Resilinc, CloudSense, NeuroRed, & many more. These applications built exclusively on the Salesforce platform, help deliver unprecedented business results, grow revenues and profits, & improve operational efficiency. 

Check out: CL Services, a top US-based 3PL service provider optimized their Salesforce file storage with XfilesPro

Major Roadblocks to Superior Business Efficiency

With the introduction of technological advancements, like Salesforce, and the prevalent use of 3rd-party custom applications, built on the Force.com platform, it would seem like enterprises in the T&L industry have everything they need. But that’s not the case. Even when using Salesforce, there are several challenges that these enterprises encounter daily.

• The 3rd-party logistics service providers usually have numerous business verticals such as supply chain, tracking & tracing shipments, warehousing, partner management, document management, customer support, & many more. To perform all these functions, they often deal with plenty of processes, people, products, & documents. But managing such a massive volume of files & documents within Salesforce is a great hassle in itself.  
• Different Salesforce documents and files such as invoices, packing lists, export licenses, purchase orders, bill of lading, airway bill, delivery order, letter of credit dock, warehouse receipts, insurance papers, load order, & certificate of origin have to be dealt with daily. This can become a huge challenge if the enterprise doesn’t have a proper file management strategy in place.  
• Coincidentally, the more users, partners, customers, vendors, & other different systems the 3PL company has, the more documents it generates in Salesforce. And the more documents it generates, the more it needs to focus on managing those documents efficiently. Therefore, it is always a problem of plenty that makes the need for a file management strategy even starker.  
• In other words, though Salesforce & the 3rd-party custom applications have been exceptional in helping 3PL companies manage their operations better, managing the large number of files has never been easy due to the limited nature of the allocated file storage. And when dealing with so many documents, enterprises are bound to eventually run out of the allocated storage.

XfilesPro: The Comprehensive File Management Strategy for T&L Companies

When looking to overcome the limitations of the file storage in Salesforce, a lot of 3PL companies initially think of purchasing additional storage space from Salesforce because it seems like an easier approach. But once they realize that it’s a pretty hefty & recurrent expense, they quickly look for other solutions to their problems which is when they truly realize the importance of adopting comprehensive file management strategies in their Salesforce Org. 

XfilesPro is one such comprehensive file management & external collaboration strategy that is trusted by various transportation & logistics service providers across the world. The solution, designed especially for Salesforce, works well with solutions like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Experience Cloud, & other custom Salesforce solutions. Using the app, companies can seamlessly migrate their important files to different external systems including cloud storages like SharePoint, AWS S3, Google Drive, OneDrive, & Dropbox, and on-premise systems like SFTP, SMB, & Network Drive. 

Gain more insight into the application by downloading this product datasheet.

By using XfilesPro, users can not only optimally manage their Salesforce files & optimize the native file storage but can also cut back on their file storage costs significantly & enhance the business growth, without compromising on their user experience. Now let’s discuss how XfilesPro’s unmatched capabilities can be of tremendous help to companies from the transportation & logistics vertical in meeting their file management goals in Salesforce.

Large Volume Initial File Offloading

Sometimes 3PL companies have a large volume of already-existing Salesforce files (closed shipment details, old freight records, old customer documents, closed customer support tickets, etc) within their Org that though are not in active use but do take up storage space, leading to different challenges. XfilesPro has an amazing ‘initial file offloading’ feature, utilizing which such files can be easily migrated to the external storage automatically, without any manual intervention. 

Centralized Content Management Experience 

Since 3PL companies deal with a multitude of files & documents, it’s very common for these files to be scattered across multiple systems like Salesforce, cloud storage, on-premise storage, community portal, etc. XfilesPro intelligently links all such files and documents to specific Salesforce records in the Org, allowing them to be managed from a single location in the external storage. This lets the T&L companies enjoy a seamless & centralized content management experience.

Also read: Why is XfilesPro the Most Comprehensive File Management Solution for Salesforce?

Community User Collaboration

In addition to the standard Salesforce users, T&L companies also have several users that make use of the enterprises’ community portal. These usually include vendors, retailers, & sometimes even customers. XfilesPro easily handles the files generated by such users & migrates them (manually or automatically) to external storage, while giving them better access to the overall Salesforce ecosystem. The app also establishes a seamless collaboration between the standard & community portal users to further simplify file management. 

Simplified Folder Management

For more sorted & systematic management of files & documents, XfilesPro enables 3PL companies to manage their files (stored in external storage) within specific folders. With the help of dynamic XfilesPro components, new folders can be created, existing folders can be renamed, folders can be mapped/unmapped, & folders can be customized as per specific requirements. This allows T&L companies to have better control over their Salesforce files & documents. 

File Accessibility & Visibility

Another thing most T&L companies require is the ability to view & access the Salesforce documents at any time. With XfilesPro’s coherent file syncing & file preview capabilities, users can easily view & access their Salesforce files right from the Salesforce console (without leaving the Salesforce ecosystem). Not only this, since the files are synced, the changes made in the file in the primary file storage will automatically be reflected in the file stored in the external storage. 

Owing to all such features & capabilities, XfilesPro has steadily emerged as the most trusted Salesforce file management solution among transportation & logistics service providers. Using XfilesPro, T&L companies can also boost their ROI, enhance the user experience, optimize business productivity, & drastically reduce file storage costs (nearly 80-90%). So, if you are a T&L industry customer, looking to simplify file management, or simply want to know more about XfilesPro, please get in touch with us or schedule a demo with us.