How it works

Managing your customers

All together in one place. Ensure the right information is sent to the right customer.

Sargasso is built around its Customer Profile database. All interactions are captured and integrated across relevant parts of the business. Gone are the days of hunting through old emails or file shares to try and find the agreed rate.

Sargasso manages responsibilities relating to services for both customer and agent, customer-specific detention policies, and reflects customer contract rates and credit arrangements. This central customer database means information is only ever one mouse click away. Save time and drive repeat business with customers impressed by your efficiency and service.

Customer and job details available to anyone who needs it, not tucked away in a sales person’s head.

Scenario

Customer rings up enquiring about the status of their 20’ containers that need to be released for voyage departing next week. The customer doesn’t know their container number, but Marge who answers the phone can check their 'in progress' bookings from the customer profile. There is only one booking in progress, so Marge opens that and sees that container release has been instructed and the containers have been released and are on their way to the customer.

Automate your workflows

Smarter workflow management to ensure all shipments are correctly manifested, bills are issued and invoiced. The centralised manifesting system increases productivity and accuracy through automation and integration. No more time spent double handling and manually re-keying documents.

All bills, invoicing and arrival notices are in one place to provide one source of truth that’s visible to everyone in the business. Never miss an invoice, with the customer automatically invoiced when their bill is approved. The efficient document handling process means improved turnaround times, with the ability to be more responsive to customer needs e.g. speeds up approval process of Bills of Lading and makes document retrieval easy. The automated system also creates an audit trail for each electronic document to show access and print records.

Scenario 1

Customer wants a document that was emailed to them earlier that month, there is some confusion as to what type of document it was. The user can view the customers documents, search between specified dates to find all the documents sent to the customer. Easily the user finds which document the customer wants and can resend it.

Scenario 2

Customer has a incident with their data and loses a few days of emails. The customer would like all the documents from the past week resent to them. The user can easily search for all the documents from the past week and resend as required.

Make informed business decisions

The Statistics feature allows fast and easy analysis of how your business is performing across all departments.

It’s a dynamic online query tool which provides rich business information to drive strategic decision making based on specific analysis that’s easy to execute e.g. see how much revenue is made by visiting a specific port and adjust rates, services or schedules to suit.

This feature enables visibility, allowing the team to proactively manage customers smarter, while also making business reporting easy e.g. management wants to know the largest and smallest customers for the year.

Use stats to view your list of customers and filter for this financial year, easily sorting by revenue or units to generate the ranked customer list.

Know where your containers are 24/7

The container control feature provides up-to-date, accurate information by using EDI to know where your containers are at all times.

You’re in the driver’s seat with the controller’s dashboard showing the status of EDI processing, container stocks and voyage statuses.

Container movements are automatically created from electronic messages, eliminating the need for manual entry and freeing up staff to maximise container use, driving business growth by:

• Enabling customised reporting for managing stocks, turnaround times and re-positioning requirements

• Reducing dwell time costs by off hiring or repositioning containers to make better use of them

• Maximising container turnaround to minimise stock levels forecasting equipment requirements based on booking levels and current releases

• Viewing container stocks to see where there is a lack or surplus of available containers at a depot to advise customers on where they should return or collect containers from

• Creating bulk movements on more than one container at a time.

Keep your customers in the know with automated notifications

Our experience shows an informed customer is a paying customer.

Remind customers to get containers in circulation faster with automated customer detention notifications and real-time information providing visibility and transparency on charges owed.

Container detention management made easy:

• No more chasing import containers, you can see exactly what’s outstanding

• View detention containers and associated customers with a single click

• Drill down into invoices and notifications

• Seamless integration with container control, customer profiles and financials

Scenario

The customer has had a container for 6 days and is nearing the free time deadline, a notification is sent automatically to the customer warning that detention costs will occur. The container is returned 4 days late, an invoice is raised, the customer having been warned (transparency) is well aware of the charges and will pay the amount due.