Public Warehousing in St. Louis: Are you leveraging your 3PL relationships?

Get the most from your public warehousing in St. Louis

When you leverage public warehousing in St. Louis as a part of your 3PL relationships, the hope might be that you’ll be able to work with your provider without a great deal of input. For some businesses, the logic behind outsourcing logistics is that will be a “set and forget” relationship. Doing this might get your goods handled, but frequently means that you’re wasting the key benefit of your 3PL partnerships. Your 3PL’s expertise can help your company improve its supply chain, but only if you leverage it.  Here a few factors to think about as you review your relationships for 2014:

Are My Expectations Clear?

Public warehousing in St. Louis can mean different things to different people. For some businesses, it’s a place to park goods between when they come in and go out. For others, it’s a gateway to a full set of 3PL services that go well above and beyond basic warehousing.

On a more micro level, expectations also relate to how you communicate with your 3PL partner. Letting them know what level of services you want them to provide for your business is a good way to start. In addition, it’s important to let them know the level of service, speed and reliability that you expect from your partners. A good 3PL company will be able to meet your expectations for public warehousing in St. Louis, but needs to know what they are first.

Are They Responsive?

A successful 3PL relationship requires communication and, while it’s great to have a partner that calls you, it can be even more important to have one that answers your questions when you call. Your public warehousing in St. Louis partner should have a firm grasp of basic information about the inventory that it holds for you, such as how much it is holding, and when deliveries are expected to come in. It should be able to provide the same level of service for outbound shipments, as well. The best 3PL partners also let you know about delays and how they’ll get fixed before you hear about them from your other partners or your customers.

Are They Asking Questions?

When a 3PL partner is serious about helping you optimize your supply chain, they’re constantly asking questions. Given the complexity of logistics operations, a 3PL that knows what it’s doing also knows that it doesn’t know enough about your business. The best of them constantly ask questions so that they can find more ways to help you.

Who Generates Solutions?

The questions that 3PLs ask aren’t ends in themselves. They’re means to the greater goal of finding solutions to your business’ supply chain issues. One of the primary reasons to work with a 3PL is that they should know the logistics business better than you. That superior knowledge should turn into ways to help you be more efficient.

Clark Logistics provides public warehousing in St. Louis. Contact us to ask about our services, and so that we can ask about yours.

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