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Keeping transportation industry alive one bottle at a time...someone's gotta move them, and if you stop consuming the whole industry falls. Keep up the good work.
Customs broker processing delays
- Thread starter thebluffs1
- Start date
Keeping transportation industry alive one bottle at a time...someone's gotta move them, and if you stop consuming the whole industry falls. Keep up the good work.
Tell that to my liver....sigh......Keeping transportation industry alive one bottle at a time...someone's gotta move them, and if you stop consuming the whole industry falls. Keep up the good work.
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You have to find out who the team is that is processing your paperwork.
Dig deep and get their phone numbers and email addresses.
Make sure you get the creds of the team supervisor.
Dig deep and get their phone numbers and email addresses.
Make sure you get the creds of the team supervisor.
Yes that was 24 twenty four hours, yes we have the customer involved, yes we have the team e-mails and supervisors ph # they are just too busy and don't have the manpower to process any quicker. Customer is looking into other brokers to see if they can handle the account and not end up with the same result. Only problem is this is only one of many shippers using Livingstone.
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also I make sure I call the office that the border crossing is at and BEG them to make sure it is tagged as urgent... some offices are open till 6pm...this usually works
Not sure if anyone else has noticed but Livingston seems to be pretty quick these days. Haven't had to wait more than 2 hours to have a shipment cleared by them. By far the worst custom brokers we have been having issues with are PCB, Expeditors, and CH Powell.
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Just clear everything for immediate entry driver waiting at border to do switch @ Windsor scale! Customs broker will love you!
Livingston are good, until they are not - it seems they just randomly pick a load to hold up on; last week we had a shipment take 25 hours to clear. Its their hierarchy system that gets in their own way - the call center try to be something they are not, and increasingly finding them to get ruder and ruder (including being hung up on when pushing for a supervisor). They can only tell us what we already know from the tracker, but ignore our years of developed instinct when dealing with Livingston for asking to speak to someone because there is definitely an issue.
We were finally able to get a branch manager from multiple weeks of pestering the websupport email which resulted in dialogue with a rep from the Windsor office who then forwarded us to a branch manager and are now on an apparent list. I did reference a particular pars number for which I was rudely hung up on from the call center, and it was the next day that the branch manager gave me a call. Any time we encounter delays, we are to email or call the Windsor office and they will help to get us answers at least on shipments that are taking too long to clear for Canadian bound shipments, or get us in touch with someone for US bound shipments. I was told they have monthly meetings regarding their service levels, and more often than not; there is a lot of vented frustration in regards to service levels. Unfortunately, it seems there is very little to do about it as so much of their work is outsourced. When we explain what we go through with the call center, they agree with us that this is not what the procedure is supposed to be - and that they actually do have ways of communicating with the teams all the way up in the ivory tower - whether it is the fault of their teams for remaining quiet or if it is the call center trying to be dismissive remains unanswered.
Also not a fan of CH Powell, they totally dropped the ball on a shipment for us a couple weeks ago and they are totally inaccessible; especially afterhours. How they stay in business is beyond me.
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Shakey
Site Supporter
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I have noticed that the call center call takers (nothing more than that) have gotten increasingly rude when there is an issue but I guess that is what happens when all they can do is read back what you already know from the tracker and people get frustrated with them. They are taught to read a script, if Livingston really wants to improve their customer service from the overseas call centers they really need to allow some freedom to the agents to actually be helpful rather than spew out as much info as possible.
CH Powell really screwed up an urgent shipment for our customer when they messed up the entry and there was absolutely no after-hours support. We tried every one of their numbers, texted what was supposed to be the branch manager, and also tried head office. Mind you this was at 5:30 PM, was an absolute nightmare.
This is the exact conversation I had with the manager from Livingston when she called me, and they are fully aware of the frustration. Unfortunately all they can do about the issue is to "observe and report," and to keep bringing the issue up at their meetings. My hope is there is enough of these types of conversations that will actually make a difference; but until then, the call center agents will just bear the brunt and abuse from the carriers.
Re: Ch Powell, we ran into a similar situation, and every time we called it went to a voicemail box that was full. We did finally get a hold of someone in California, but they would not help us. It's a lost cause with them; yet they seem to not get in to any trouble when things go sideways. Super frustrating.
