How Third Party Logistics providersmanage relationship with customers— A multiple case study

Abstract: More and more third party logistics (TPL) business appeared because that traditionallogistics service is quite simple and not customized. The growth of advanced logisticsservices from customers has caused growing competition pressure for third partylogistics providers. More and more TPL providers try to have strategic developmentby developing and improving the relationship with customer. In order to explore thecustomer relationship management (CRM) of TPL provider, this thesis aims to findout why third party logistics providers should pay attention to CRM and try to figureout how they manage the relationship with customers. Through a multiple case study,some main drivers for TPL provider to pay attention to CRM include industrycharacteristics and business environment, profits improvement and trust enhancing.Paying more attention, improving communication, allocating resources morereasonably and satisfying more customer requirement can be regard as the tools forTPL providers to manage the relationship with customers.