News
- Amsterdam flying high
- 1/12/2010
Amsterdam flying high
Last year ranks as one of the most difficult on record for the freight industry, with fewer shipments moved and rates at an all time low. However, Bellville Rodair International (BRI) Amsterdam bucked this trend with a record 91% increase in revenue and 118% increase in gross profit, compared with the same period in 2008, it announced today.Exponential growth in both sea and air freight have come off the back of BRI’s commitment to increasing its customer base of small-to-medium-sized companies, and a determination to exceed normal customer service levels, says Waldo Remijn, Regional Manager for the Benelux.
“We actively ramped up additional customer services, thinking ahead about what customers really needed, optimising information for them, and suggesting additional services that added value to their supply chains. For example, we have a service from the Port of Rotterdam, offering deferred connections by rail instead of road, which provides a more economic option,” said Remijn.
“Dialogue is so important. It ensures that we don’t lose a customer and that we get their next shipment,” he added. BRI Amsterdam actively targeted small-to-medium-sized companies as they have been less affected than the top tier blue-chip companies where rates “have really been squashed”. It continues to do so in 2010.
BRI Amsterdam is one of the smaller BRI global offices, and its background in serving the small-to-medium sized customer has positioned it well in a market where some larger forwarders serving top tier customers have lost as much 30-40% of volumes in the past six months.
“While it’s true that less freight is moving, our increased focus on customer service means we have been able to retain existing customers and gain new ones,” says Remijn, demonstrating commitment to the company’s philosophy of Building Reliability.
BRI’s focus on the small-to-medium customer is paying dividends as a company which has long been trusted in this sector. “None of them will say to us, ‘in the past you weren’t willing to serve me but now you are’,” added Remijn.
And BRI Amsterdam is expanding its new customer base, where other forwarders are failing to be as flexible. Last year, it won a new contract moving containers from the US to the Netherlands for a customer whose previous forwarder was not offering flexible enough terms and lacking in its customer service.
“The customer described the service he was using previously as a ‘black hole’, with no knowledge of when shipments would surface. He could only start planning once shipments arrived on the dock. Now, together with BRI Houston, we provide up-to-date container status reports, and communicate a few times per week with the customer by phone and e-mail and the customer can rely on us when planning his production and onward transport,” said Remijn.
BRI operates offices in over 20 locations, including: London – Budapest – Brasov – Amsterdam – Prague – Hamburg – Stuttgart - Klaipeda – Shanghai – Porto Alegre – Toronto – Vancouver – Montreal – New York – Houston – Miami, and, most recently, Brussels.
For more information on BRI Amsterdam or to organise an interview with a member of the BRI Europe Management Team, please contact: Paloma Minter at Dove Communications by e-mail: Paloma.minter@bellvillerodair.com or on +44 (0) 7955 944 111.