Monthly Archives: November 2014

“We try to never say no to our customers”

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Categories: Profiles.

The one who wishes, will find possibilities – the one who doesn’t, will look for excuses! That’s the everyday motto in both business and life for Julia Rahula, Country Manager at Greencarrier Liner Agency in Tallinn, Estonia. She has more than twelve years of experience in the shipping industry and strongly believes in the power of team spirit.


Hi Julia! Tell me about your job as a Country Manager. What does that involve?

My job as a Country Manager involves quite a wide range of tasks. I’m responsible for overseeing both processes and people, including day-to-day business decisions related to customer relationships, daily operation issues and staff related tasks, to the planning and execution of Greencarrier’s global policies and strategies.

Our office here in Tallinn is quite small with only seven employees, so naturally I’m involved in all of our business activities on a daily basis. It’s a constant balance between developing new businesses and attracting new customers, while at the same time keeping existing customers happy and satisfied.

What’s the biggest challenge in your job?

We’re living in a rapidly changing world where the biggest challenge is to keep up with market and industry changes. Today, customers require daily updates and excellent service. Finding the best customer solution sometimes means that you need to find compromises between all parties. These are choices that we need to make every day together as a team. It also puts pressure on how we continue to develop our business in order to constantly be moving forward, which it’s absolutely necessary. Otherwise you can’t stay alive in today’s tough competition in the container shipping industry.

What qualities are useful in your position, do you think?

I believe it’s important to be confident and calm in every situation, have good communication skills, be result-oriented, have ability to delegate (to develop further business) and at the same time have a sense of humour, a positive attitude and the ability to inspire others. As my job strongly involves communicating with people, I believe it’s important to be a good listener, open minded and proactive.

Which part of your job is the most fun?

Working with a variety of people with different personalities and backgrounds is something that I value highly. Greencarrier is a multicultural company, and it gives me a great deal of pleasure to meet people from different countries and continents, share new experiences and create new opportunities.

The team spirit that we have is also something that I appreciate. At our Estonian office we have the tradition of celebrating all our victories and achievements, even the small ones. With our employees, we share our experiences and what we’ve learnt along the way to success. This brings us together, creates motivation and inspiration, generates new ideas and keeps the spirit up. By doing this we live the Greencarrier values.

You have more than twelve years of experience in the shipping industry. What’s the most important thing you’ve learnt along the way?

The most important thing I’ve learnt throughout the years is that we’re working for a rapidly changing industry, which requires that you’re quick, active and flexible. I’ve also learnt that you need to lead your team by example. With a good team you can achieve high goals.

Greencarrier’s promise to the market is “Yes, it’s possible!” How do you work with, and live up to this commitment, in day-to-day business?

We try to never say no to customer’s requests or needs. Even if we can’t offer them the services they require, we always try to find an alternative, and perhaps, even better solution. Sometimes it’s only a matter of helping the customer get in touch with another Greencarrier division. Consequently, by the end of the day the customer is happy to stick with us, as we’re doing our very best to help them. Having the right attitude when communicating with customers will help you find a possible solution for every customer need.

So, what do you do when you’re not working?

When I’m not working I’m trying to spend as much time as possible with my family and friends, especially my son Darian who is five. Together we like to travel, play games, cook and many other things. I’m happy to see him grow and be a part of it. I also try to find time for my hobbies, which are ballroom dancing, downhill skiing and jogging. This year I started playing golf as well. All these activities are quite time consuming though, it would be great to have more than 24 hours a day to manage! I try to maintain an active lifestyle, while at the same time find a good balance between my job and private life.

You sound like a busy woman for sure, Julia! Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Now, keep up the good work being a Country Manager, and good luck with playing that golf!

For more articles with our Greencarrier profiles in focus, keep an eye out here on the blog. If you enjoyed reading this one, please let us know by leaving a comment in the field below! Get more info about Greencarrier on our website, and don’t forget to also swing by our Greencarrier Facebook page.

/Josefine Widegren, Greencarrier AB

What we do to improve our customer service standards

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Categories: Solutions. Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Our customers are our top priority. Without them we simply wouldn’t survive. When we sent out a customer satisfaction survey to find out how our customers perceive us, we received some good business reviews. But more importantly, we got great feedback on how to improve our business. Recently we initiated a comprehensive project to develop our customer service standards within Greencarrier Liner Agency.

Our strengths – we walk the talk and have extensive knowledge of the business

The customer satisfactionsurvey revealed that our customers think that we have professional and experienced staff with extensive knowledge of the business. We’re also happy to walk the talk of our values – commitment, involvement, humour and joy – and to have a satisfactory cooperation with our customers. But even if we’re a bunch of nice people to do business with and truly live our shared values, there’s more to it than that…

The things that really matter when it comes down to everyday business

One can’t ignore that it is the “hard facts” that really matters when it comes down to everyday business. Things like export booking confirmation, the time of pre-arrival notification and the accuracy of export bill of lading and invoicing. As the business climate is changing we’re moving from the personal, intimate way of doing business to the more rapid, fast handling systems and processes. Demands are higher as well as the pace. Our customers must be able to reach us instantly by phone or email. If there’s congestion in a shipment they need a person to contact who can provide information or set up a meeting.

Getting everyone involved by educating and training our employees

In order to improve our customer service standards we decided to perform a number of activities.  We wanted to get everyone involved by educating and training our employees. The purpose was to foster new and improved sales, customer service aspirations and performances, strengthen the team spirit and translate the mind-set “Yes, it´s possible” into individual behaviour.

In the end of 2013 customer service training was held for all operational staff focusing on our knowledge, skills and behaviour and setting standards for our customer service. In April we continued with sales training focusing on knowledge and increased competence within the business and environmental issues in the industry. In May we sent out the customer satisfaction survey to find out how our customers actually perceive us.

Our focus areas for improving our customer service standards

To sum up our training, workshop and the survey we have highlighted five focus areas that we want to improve. We can see in the results that our valuation work has succeeded and been well implemented. Some of the focus areas we already have good results in, as our accessibility and accuracy of invoicing. But there are always improvements to do! Now we need to set some new targets for the hard business values where we can identify the improvements that need to be done.

  • Export booking confirmation. We have the ambition to confirm bookings within two hours.
  • Accessibility. We always want to be reachable to our customers. We will answer phone calls within five to ten seconds and emails within two hours.
  • Accuracy of export/import invoicing. We want our customers to always have confidence in our work and feel that the accuracy of export and import invoices are correct and processed in the right way. Our ambition is to have 98% accuracy of our invoicing.
  • Accuracy of export B/L. When sending B/L to customers we want these to always be correct with the right information. Our ambition is to have 98% accuracy on the export B/L as well.
  • Time of pre-arrival notice import. When sending our pre-arrival notice to our import customers we want to send this within seven days, and to our transit customer within two days.

Our new standards will be followed up by our operational and sales staff in customer meetings, and hopefully we can see some improvements the next time we do the customer satisfaction survey!

What would you say is the most important part of customer service when it comes to logistics and transport companies? Feel free to leave a comment in the field below or interact with us in our social media channels. We’d love to know what you think!

/Tuomas Timgren, Greencarrier Liner Agency

Why we switch to e-invoicing and how it benefits you

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Categories: Solutions, Sustainability. Tags: , , , , .

Did you know that paper invoices are responsible for ten percent of all trees cut down worldwide? Also, creating paper invoices uses as much energy each year as the consumption of 20 million households. Recently we decided to switch from paper to e- invoicing, the environment being one of the reasons, amongst many others.

What is an e-invoice?

An e-invoice is an invoice that is sent and received electronically and used to automate invoice processing. It’s a legal document that always includes invoice data and an invoice image. The invoice information is transmitted from the invoice issuer’s invoicing system using intermediators to the recipient’s financial administration IT system.

Why we prefer e-invoicing to traditional paper invoices

We believe in the importance of environmental protection and improvement for the long term. We always strive to minimise environmental impact, aiming for continuity in everything we do. That includes our handling process of invoices as well as anything else.

The benefits of e-invoicing

In addition to the environmental aspect there are many other reasons to use e-invoicing. An e-invoice solution for business-to-business does not alter the existing billing process. However, it reduces the manual work, which contributes to improved efficiency for both our customers and ourselves (as well as the environment). Here are some examples:

  • Improved safety with secure handling of invoices
  • Reduced administrative costs and errors
  • Greater efficiency and control of data
  • Increased visibility and control of cash flow
  • Eliminates late payment fees
  • Improves ability to forecast
  • Reduces typing errors
  • Less printing in favor for the environment
  • Decreases carbon footprint

Safe and suitable e-invoicing regardless of operator

Our invoicing is suitable to all customers, no matter of ERP/finance system used, only requirement is that your ERP system has e-invoice compatibility. Our e-invoice solution provider has a roaming agreement with good coverage, which means that you, as our customer, may use other operators without problem. All handling of data must be based on high security and data integrity. Sending e-invoices via our e-invoice solution provider is as safe as sending information via your online bank. All information is encrypted so that it’s only accessible by the recipient.

Tell us what you think!

Do you have any questions about our e-invoicing? Please, do not hesitate to contact me! I would also like to know your thoughts on this matter. Do you agree that e-invoicing is a good option? Maybe you have already started ditching hard copies in other ways? Let me know in the comment field below!

Also, visit our website for more information. Until next time, see you in our social media-channels!

/Minna Ruisaho, Greencarrier Liner Agency