How to ask for freight forwarder recommendation

Due to the vast extension of the forwarding industry and the complexity of finding new forwarders to work with, one of the best ways to acquire new partners and make new business partnerships is to ask for freight forwarder recommendation and feedback.

By ensuring you make good work during your forwarder operation and by making sure that your partner is satisfied with it there is no reason why you shouldn’t ask for a recommendation, and for a testimonial stating how his experience was and if he would indicate you to other forwarders. 

Benefits of freight forwarder referral

1. Less cost of new forwarder partnering acquisition

According to Wharton School of Business, a referred customer costs less to acquire and has a higher potential for retention and loyalty. In addition, a recommended forwarder partner has a lifetime value twice as big as a non-recommended one. That is why it’s super important to always collect feedback from your partners and make them visual for every potential forwarder that wants to partner with you can see. 

2. Reduced effort from your forwarding team

The effort you and your forwarding team will have to make to acquire new freight partners to work with coming from a freight forwarder referral is going to be significantly lower compared to the traditional way, which involves hours of search. Also, seeing feedbacks from previous partners that worked with a forwarder you intend to partner with gives your team more confidence to enroll in the partnership. 

3. Most qualified freight partners 

Once your freight forwarder partners recommend your company to others and give you feedback there is a higher chance that you will receive more forwarders ready to make a new business partnership. The reason is that they will come to you already knowing a little bit more about how your forwarder operates and that you have what they are looking for.

4. More visibility to your freight company

By asking your forwarder partners to recommend you to others and to give you feedback on your services, your forwarding company’s visibility will definitely increase. And that is because once you have good feedbacks and referrals more forwarders will talk about your company’s services. 

5. New forwarder business opportunities

Freight forwarder recommendation will lead more interested forwarder partners to make new business partnerships with your company, and that means more profit to your forwarder, it’s a win-win. 

After all, how to ask my forwarder partners to recommend me?

Asking for freight forwarder recommendation doesn’t have to be an occasional event inside your freight forwarding company, in fact, it should be something that you ask each of your forwarder partners by the end of a shipment operation.

If the operation went as expected there is no reason why you should hold back, so ask away!

The best way for you to ask your forwarder partners for a referral is to send them an email by the end of the operation, in the email you should mention how good it was to make a partnership with him and how all went well, by the end you ask for the recommendation. Here is a sample of how you can do it:

“Hello [partner] (add your partner’s name here), 

Hope you are doing well over there!

I’m so glad that the shipment we made to [place] (add the end destination) went well, hope you are as satisfied as we were. 

Given the success of our forwarder partnering operation, I was wondering if you could give us your feedback so we can use it on our advertising materials. And in case any partner or client of yours needs a forwarder partner in our country we would be happy to assist!

On our end, we will be doing the same! 

Thanks in advance,”

No secret weapon, just a simple and honest email. Just remember, if you work currently with a partner and you are always exchanging business, don’t ask for recommendations after every shipment operation, it can be overwhelming. A good option for cases like that is to ask for feedback every 6 months or annually. 

Go for it

Now that you are aware of the benefits and the best way to ask for freight forwarder recommendation you should push the start on this strategy. Remember, if you get good testimonials from your forwarder partners add them to the first page of your website for your potential forwarder partners to see and increase the chances of making new business partnerships.