London, UK, and Brussels, Belgium -  The level of satisfaction concerning container carriers among exporters, importers, and freight forwarders falls marginally, according to the third annual shipper satisfaction survey of Drewry and the European Shippers’ Council (ESC).

The joint ESC and Drewry survey reveals that the 249 shippers and forwarders who took part in the survey rated the service of container shipping lines with a score of 3.1 on average (which is 0.1 lower than last year) on a scale of 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied).

Customer satisfaction was reported least favourable for clarity of prices and surcharges, transit times, and reliability of booking/cargo shipped as booked scoring between 2.8 and 3 (see chart).

The carrier service attributes which shippers were the most satisfied with were carrier financial stability, documentation accuracy, and availability of equipment (containers), which received average scores between 3.2 to 3.4.

All the service features were overall awarded mid-range scores; only 4% of customers were “very dissatisfied” with carrier services and only 6% were “very satisfied”.