Customer Testimonial: Vervoer De Smet

“Qargo had the answer to all our concerns and frustrations with our existing solution.”

Sometimes the fear of change can act as a roadblock to business transformation, potentially impacting on future growth and success.

The flip side? Being cautious is understandable when considering a change that could hit your bottom line if it doesn’t deliver on its promise. However, it was clear to Pieter De Smet – who runs the family haulier business Vervoer De Smet with his younger brother Bram, having recently taken over the business from his parents, Rudy and Hilde – that their highly successful operations were being held back by an aging TMS platform.

De Smet and his team needed a solution that could confidently meet the growing and diverse demands of the company’s haulage services for the construction sector. After all, the Belgium-based business, created just after World War II, has 30 trucks, 100 trailers and roster of 10 subcontractors to manage, “and as a supplier in construction, we must offer just-in-time deliveries,” explains De Smet. “To achieve this, we needed a TMS that was very flexible and offered fast communication with both customers and drivers.”

Failed offering

However, the company’s existing TMS simply wasn’t up to the job. Vervoer De Smet had been working with the platform since the late 90s, initially only utilising it for invoicing. Over the years though, its role expanded to cover all planning and fleet management. “The problem was, as I started working with the TMS, I found it to be a rather rigid system with adaptations to orders taking a lot of steps and time,” recalls De Smet. “The TMS also had a rather old-fashioned style, which I found concerning.” Finally, the integration between the platform and the haulier’s driver app was highly problematic as it never worked as well as expected.

Changing pains

Frustrated, De Smet wanted to make the move to another TMS provider and had already heard of Qargo via a Facebook customer testimonial. Vervoer De Smet had even been contacted directly by Qargo shortly afterwards – but there was a problem. As much as De Smet wanted to make the switch, his parents – the owners of the company – were hesitant.

“They were a bit reluctant because they feared the change so we didn’t really go any further,” he admits. However, when De Smet heard that Qargo was giving a demo to a fellow transporter, he decided to attend to see whether the platform could deliver the functionality needed. “I was immediately impressed by Qargo’s clear programming and adaptability,” De Smet recalls, “so I invited Qargo to visit our company to offer a personalised demo.”

Convincing benefits

After the demo, De Smet’s colleagues – and his parents – were won over by Qargo’s potential on five key fronts. First, the clarity and the intuitiveness of the solution promised to overcome the frustrating and antiquated processes of the company’s old platform.

Second, all were impressed by the fast, easy processing of orders that removed the busywork of manually entering details – and the risk of human errors. Third, the integrated driver app would finally work as intended plus promised to deliver exceptional performance. Fourth, De Smet explains, “the integration of AI was groundbreaking and the AI-bot helpdesk surprisingly accurate.” And finally, all were won over by Qargo’s extensive range of modules for creating price tables.

Now convinced, the company decided to make the transition to Qargo quickly. The onboarding experience itself was friction-free, “due to the intuitive setup so we didn’t need a lot of support,” says De Smet. “Everything went really smoothly and we started using Qargo fully in January without any major issues.”

“Qargo's team is very accessible and provides support really fast."

The benefits since rollout have been significant, the company now able to manage its orders far more quickly. “The customer gets the information they need a lot faster than before, plus our drivers get their jobs much quicker,” says De Smet. “The information flow within our company has improved hugely, too, which makes life easier for everyone.”

Looking to the future, De Smet remains excited about the haulier’s partnership with Qargo with any concerns about the change now consigned to the past. In fact, De Smet has a new ambitious plan that he hopes Qargo can help realise: “If we can incorporate e-cmrs into Qargo’s offering, we can create a paperless dataflow – which will give us an advantage over our competitors. That would be the ideal.” Needless to say, Qargo is already working on achieving De Smet’s ambition – so watch this space.

“It's the continuous improvements made by Qargo that give us confidence moving into the future.”

Considering a TMS switch? Speak to Qargo today to learn more.