Online bookings aren’t just for flights and hotels anymore. In our everyday lives, online bookings are becoming standard practice, and now it is time for the B2B world to catch-up with the sleek and honed consumer experience.
One of the best examples is the air freight market, according to the McKinsey & Company, only 6 percent of the largest freight forwarders have end-to-end online booking capabilities.
But other than a need to be reactive to customers, what are the other benefits to leveraging the digitisation that e-booking platforms have to offer? We take a look at how e-booking can save your company time, money and help future-proof your business.
Save time
The online booking process reduces the numerous phone calls and endless emails to just a few clicks of a button. Not only that, but e-booking can allow for multiple bookings to be made simultaneously, with dashboards providing visibility of everything in one place. With the IAG Cargo e-booking platform, you can make a booking from start to finish in under 2 minutes, freeing up your time for much more important tasks, like scrolling through LinkedIn?
24/7
Unlike the human at the end of the phone (or email-chain), booking systems don’t sleep. This means that they are accessible from anywhere in the world, at any time, without having to limit yourself to pesky working hours.
Visibility
When it comes to air cargo and shipping overseas, visibility of the process of your shipment is key. E-booking platforms from the Royal Mail to TNT offer sophisticated tracking functionalities, all aimed at improving visibility. IAG Cargo’s Track and Trace has the added benefit of giving you live information to update your customers, which is even more important when you might be shipping time-critical vaccines.
Saving money
Time is money, right? However, it isn’t just money saved through staff efficiency, but through reactive market rates and promotions. Most of the time e-booking platforms link directly through API’s to back-end booking systems, meaning that when you book online you are getting live rates. Similarly, with promotions, at IAG Cargo, we offer special e-booking rates for customers registered to use the service, which could help save you money on your next shipment.
The future is mobile
Working remotely from the office or on the move is becoming more prevalent, and the ability to make bookings from either a phone or tablet are on the rise. Good e-booking systems are designed to work seamlessly on mobile devices, meaning that you can book and track your shipments on the go. Also, with the latest announcement of the roll out of 5G in Switzerland, Bahrain and the United Kingdom, and the ability for mobile devices to download an entire season of Game of Thrones in 10 seconds, there is no doubt that the future is mobile.
IAG Cargo has a sophisticated online booking portal, with track and trace functionality and a centralised customer dashboard. Register for e-booking now to take advantage of all the benefits (and don’t forget to sign up to our marketing so that you don’t miss out on those exclusive discounts).
Not an existing customer? We can fix that, sign-up here.