2014 Review and Why Customers Always Come First

Good evening All

As my co-director has just reminded me, I haven't updated our blog for quite a while now for which I apologise! Thing is, 2014 was our best year to date, surpassing even our record year in 2013 which meant a heavy focus on our customers.

When it comes to a toss up between spending time on existing customers and their challenges and time on sales, existing customers always win, hands down - why? Because our customers remember the challenges and that we were right there alongside them and actively resolving a situation or influencing the outcome - and that's probably why they stay with us year on year (our first customer from 2010 is still on board today).

Also, when we carry out one of our Freight Reviews for a brand new client, we are completely refreshing their logistics model - cost - service levels - Customs compliance (a time consuming but worthwhile process) and it's really important to us that not only do we achieve or exceed the results we promised in our proposal, but that we monitor the traffic closely until it's completely bedded in and as  a result of that we neglected our blog, Logistics Simplified.

Having said that, we did remain very active on other platforms such as LinkedIn and Twitter and I should also mention that we launched our new website in Sep-14, something we spent around 4-5 months on. My wife and co-director Diane Cliff was the lead on this, and working alongside a graphic designer and the web design company, she delivered a superb result in that we retained the simple and straightforward feel of the site but refreshed our strap line to Logistics Simplified and also more clearly defined the 4 services we offer today - Freight Reviews, Freight Management, Customs Compliance and Consultancy, something the old site didn't convey that well.

Now I've made a start and revived our blog I will keep it going and share our continuing journey with you!

Kind Regards



Andy Cliff
DirectorStraightforward Consultancy LtdEmail : andy@straightforwardconsultancy.co.uk
Web : www.straightforwardconsultancy.co.uk
Blog : http://straightforwardconsultancy.blogspot.co.uk/
Twitter: @AndyCliffSCL
Linkedin: http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/andy-cliff/1a/43/72
Skype: andy.cliff1@skype.com