How many times have you had a customer call and ask the location of their freight? Or had a customer email you and ask if you could scan over an important document from their order? 

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Thanks to the technology that we use in our personal lives — like apps that let you track the location of your food order  — you always know where the items you’ve purchased are in relation to being dropped at your doorstep. The visibility you’ve come to expect on your personal shipments has translated over to the trucking industry, where your customers expect the same level of visibility into their freight. 

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Enter the Rose Rocket TMS Customer Portal. Not to throw shade at other TMSs out there, but if your TMS doesn’t have a Customer Portal, it’s time to start looking for a new TMS. If you’ve never heard of our Customer Portal, read on to learn more about what it is and why it’s so important to have. 

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What is a TMS Customer Portal? 

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Rose Rocket is a cloud-based TMS, meaning that no matter where you or your customers are, as long as you have access to the internet you’ll be able to access Rose Rocket and the Rose Rocket TMS Customer Portal. 

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As a Rose Rocket customer, you’ll have access to the TMS, which is where you run your trucking or logistics business out of, but we’ll also provide you with Customer Portals —  a piece of Rose Rocket technology that you can extend to your customers. 

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Each of your customers can have their own portal.  From the Customer Portal, they’ll be able to do things like input orders, track & trace loads, manage documents, live chat with your team, and much more. Being able to extend a piece of your TMS technology to your customers helps you and your customers collaborate better. 

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So you might be wondering – why are we hyping this up so much? Claiming it's a must-have feature for your TMS is no small claim. Read on to learn why we think it's a vital feature for any TMS to have. 

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What makes a TMS Customer Portal so important to have? 

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1. TMS Customer Portals enable on-demand track & trace

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Thanks to the ELD mandates in both the US and Canada, trucks must have an electronic logging device in them, meaning that location updates can flow directly to your customer’s using the TMS Customer Portal. 

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The challenging part can be sharing that information without having to constantly call your customer up or send them ETA emails every few hours. And if you’re not actively sharing this information with them, you might get into a game of phone tag as they try to call you throughout the day to learn where their freight is.   

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The beauty of a cloud-based transportation management software like Rose Rocket, is that we’re able to integrate with ELDs and pull information from the ELD right into the TMS, like the location of the truck. In the Customer Portal, your customer will be able to see this ELD information and know exactly where their freight is whenever they need. 

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2. TMS Customer Portals streamline communication between you & your customers 

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Giving your customer a Customer Portal enables better communication between the two of you. From the Customer Portal, you and your customers can talk using the built-in chat function. 

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The ability to communicate within the Customer Portal will provide you with a history of your communication between you and your customer, and will make it easy for both of you to go back and look at past conversations, if needed. 

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In addition, the Customer Portal also stores all important documents related to an order, like the BOL and POD, so you don't have to worry about scanning or faxing key documents to customers. You and your customer can go into the Portal to upload or retrieve any document related to an order. Documents are automatically saved on each order so you can find them later. 

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3. TMS Customer Portals help improve your customer service experience 

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Having the power to share a piece of your TMS technology with your customers is a game-changer in the customer service you’ll be able to provide to your customers. 

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Instead of having to get in touch with you to create a new order, they’ll be able to input orders themselves into the Customer Portal. The ability for customers to self-serve helps make it easier for you and your customers to collaborate, improving your customer service, and saving everyone time. 

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In addition, the features that streamline communication and the ability for customers to track & trace their freight whenever they want, make it easy for customers to work with you and to also know their freight is in good hands. 

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In summary…

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A TMS Customer Portal is a vital feature your TMS needs to have. A Customer Portal enables you to give a piece of your TMS technology to customers, so that they can easily collaborate and communicate with you. 

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Interested in learning more about the Rose Rocket TMS Customer Portal? Book a demo with us below and we’d be happy to show you how Customer Portals can level-up your customer service. 

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