Investments in staff and technology combine to provide personalized attention By Peter A. Buxbaum, AJOT In some ways, the operations and customer relations of Non-Vessel Operating Common Carriers have become more like those of the steamship lines. Last year, the Federal Maritime Commission published a final rule that exempted licensed NVOCCs from the tariff rate publication requirements of the Shipping Act of 1984, a state of affairs that has prevailed for the steamship lines for some years. Instead, the relationship between NVOCCs and their customers are governed by a negotiated rate arrangement, or NRA, much as the steamship lines negotiate service contracts with their customers. NVOCCs and steamship lines share a world in which downward pressure on rates has prevailed for the last twenty years, motivating both to streamline their operations and invest in technology that enhance customer service and reduce costs. But important differences remain in how the two types of carriers operate, and, according to Michael Troy, founder and chairman of Troy Container Line Ltd., one of the largest American-owned NVOCCs, the steamship lines and the NVOCCs enjoy something of a complementary, symbiotic relationship. The NVOCCs, according to Troy, in many ways serve as the front line customer service agents for the steamship lines, attracting smaller customers that the lines themselves are not in a position to handle. “The biggest issue facing NVOCCs,” said Troy, in an exclusive interview with the American Journal of Transportation, “is how to continue to provide customer service at the personal level and the web-based level. It is getting to be harder and harder to provide customer service in an environment in which rates have been driven down for the last 20 years or so.” Based in New Jersey with a satellite office in Charlotte, NC, Troy Container Line recently expanded its service to include new direct routes to Liverpool and Manchester in the United Kingdom. The company now offers service to more than 500 ports internationally. Twenty-five years ago, less-then-containerload cargo from New York to Hong Kong was rated at $175 per cubic meter, according to Troy. “Today it is down to $40,” he said. “Granted, the carriers have reduced their costs by about 60 percent” but costs have not fallen as steeply as rates. The strategy NVOCCs have pursued in this environment, according to Troy, has been to invest in personal customer service. “Getting space for clients on vessels that have been locked down or vessels that have been taken out of service is not the biggest issue,” he said. “Trying to live up to the value added services we can provide while rates decrease has been a challenge for the last 20 years. It may sound elementary, but we answer the phone.” Providing personal customer service is the opportunity that NVOCCs have carved out for themselves in the difficult rate environment in which they found themselves. “You can’t get through to a lot of larger carriers on the phone,” said Troy. “They can’t handle the volume of phone calls because staffing is so low. We still answer telephones and we do not push customers to a web-based system. There is an opportunity for any company that invests in staff and in technology to offer superior customer service.” Troy Container Line does offer a website for bookings, quotes, and tracking and tracing. “But customers can still reach us,” said Troy. “They can get through to a live person. Most NVOCCs still do that, while a lot of the large carriers don’t carry the amount of staff needed to accommodate clients. So they look to us to deal with individual clients and they take bookings from us, instead of dealing with two- or three-hundred small clients. That is our business.” That is where the symbiosis between ship lines and NVOCCs comes in. “Customers get from us what they can’t get from the steamship lines,” said Troy. “When you talk about steamship lines, you are talking strictly about full containerload services. NVOCCs provide less-than-container loa