About Community Coffee
Community Coffee is the largest family-owned coffee brand that's been in business over 100 years in the United States. They are a roaster and distributor based in Baton Rouge, LA and pride themselves on high quality customer service. Jacob Haydel is the Transportation Supervisor, overseeing a team responsible for scheduling shipments and managing their pricing contracts with carriers.
Community Coffee got set up with Portex in just 20 minutes, and by going from emails and spreadsheets to Portex’s automated platform, they have been able to uplevel their freight procurement and shipment management in the following 5 ways.
1. Better carrier tracking has led to higher quality customer service
“Good customer service and making sure deliveries are on time is my #1 priority. Portex has reduced 100 emails a week from my inbox, making it way easier to track and resolve issues quickly.”
Service is critical to Community Coffee. Their top priority is ensuring the product is always delivered on time, with carriers acting as an extension of the friendly face Community Coffee customers have come to expect.
Read MoreRead LESSBefore Portex, carrier response rate and win rate were not tracked. The tracking of delivery issues was dependent on the logistics coordinator manually logging the details in a spreadsheet for wider visibility. Tracking a delivery issue was often complicated because it would require coordination with multiple stakeholders’ email chains.
Portex organizes communication into one central platform. Now, Jacob can see that he sent a request to 10 people, 4 of them responded, and he can easily compare pricing without needing to copy/paste from different emails and spreadsheets.
He can also see if loads are delivered on time, and if there is an issue, he can see on the same screen what conversation took place and how the issue was resolved. Since each message is time stamped in the chat portal, he can easily compare against expected delivery times to see if carriers are communicating proactively.
Portex’s automated reports show response rate and win rate over time by broker, so Jacob now has the tools and visibility he needs to make sure Community Coffee only works with the best brokers who will deliver the quality of service they expect from their freight partners.
2. No more individual spreadsheets or emails for their quarterly bid process
“My favorite feature is the RFP process and how streamlined it is. Overall, Portex is very user friendly. They have kept it simple and to the point, helping me shave 8 hours off of every RFP.”
Every 3 months, Community Coffee runs an RFP (Request for Proposal) to get pricing across their lanes. Before Portex, Jacob sent out individual spreadsheets to carriers for pricing, then manually consolidated all the information, which was very time consuming.
Read MoreRead LessPortex simplifies the RFP process by collecting and consolidating all the pricing data across your carriers into a single report which compares everyone side by side and ranks the carriers from lowest to highest price. This has reduced Jacob’s onerous RFP process by saving 8 hours of time he would have spent sifting through information.  Portex saves the information from the Bid, so Jacob can tender directly from the platform. He really loves how easy it is to search a RFP by lane without having to scroll through a big list. When he is ready to tender, all the information is already saved and all he has to do is input the PO number. Portex keeps it super simple for the end user. There is no “I wonder what that tab does”. When Jacob has had to show the platform to a new user, they always pick it up quickly.
3. Automated reports provide deeper insights into costs and delivery times
Previously, it would take him 2 days to put this type of report together, but with Portex it takes him just 2 hours.
In his role, Jacob needs to be able to show his superiors expected pricing changes going into each quarter, including how prices are changing by lane and per case.
Read MoreRead LessThe information is easy to grab, never gets deleted, and he can go as far back as needed. If he wants to export the data into excel so he can create custom reports, he can do that with the click of a button.
4. Increased visibility has created more efficient team communication
“We’ve been able to establish more efficient processes for spot quotes and RFPs through centralized communication, giving my team visibility into all communications with our carriers.”
Each Community Coffee transportation team member manages different types of transportation: 1 manages inbound from vendors, 1 manages outbound to customers, and 1 manages trucks going between distribution centers and warehouses. Prior to Portex, the communication for each workstream was captured in each team member’s mailbox, and broader visibility relied on each team member inputting info into a shared spreadsheet.
Read MoreRead LessPortex increased visibility of all 3 types of freight across the team through one shared platform. Furthermore, adjacent teams like warehousing can easily access relevant info, such as how many loads are coming in and out each day.
If there is a problem with a load, Jacob can look up the shipment in Portex via the PO number and see the conversation that took place, even if he wasn’t the one who procured that load. If there was an extra lumper charge or there was a breakdown, he can see that there was a conversation about that in Portex’s chat portal versus relying on his team member to pass that information along.
“Today, Doug’s on vacation. Everything that Doug is working on is on our dashboard, and if something goes wrong, we get notified so it doesn’t get missed on our end. One of us can easily step in and make sure everything’s going smoothly.”
When there's a priority shipment, Jacob can easily see if bids have been returned or if a load has been tendered out, allowing him to do a quick status-check and give his freight partner a call, if needed.
Portex lets you be as high level or as detailed as you need in your communication. If you have a more intricate load that requires certain specifications, there are dropdowns you can use to enter everything—from accessorials to size of the load to the type of equipment. It makes it easy for the carrier to quickly understand what is needed.
5. More time to strategize on truck utilization, internal processes and cost savings
With Portex, it’s much easier to share information and answer questions, saving them up to 5 hours on those hectic days.
Prior to Portex, some days Jacob spent fighting a fire every 30ft. They would book 10 loads, and have to answer the same 20 questions across different stakeholders.
Read MoreRead LessWith the time saved, Jacob and his team have been able to reallocate their time to more strategic tasks such as:
Optimizing utilization of their internal trucking team
Calculating cost savings by their internal trucking team, showing that having them work overtime is more cost effective than outsourcing
Figuring out how to optimize operational processes such as claims and invoice reconciliation
Assessing current carrier performance and finding potential new carriers to increase pricing competition
All of which have decreased costs for Community Coffee, making the transportation team more of a value driver for the business. “Portex gets us out of the day-to-day weeds and helps me focus on the bigger picture of running an effective transportation team and making sure our processes are efficient.”
