Our half-year review is now with clients on a retainer. The headline is that volumes are up modestly on the same period last year, that schedule reliability on our main lanes has improved slightly, and that the proportion of declarations amended after submission has fallen for the third consecutive period.
The last of those is the number we care most about, because an amended declaration usually means something was wrong at source.
Declaration quality
Amendments now run at just under two per cent of submissions, down from close to five per cent when we began measuring. Almost all of the improvement comes from the supplier documentation review we started offering at onboarding: where we have seen a supplier invoice template in advance and asked for changes, the error rate is a fraction of what it is otherwise.
Transit performance
Median door-to-door transit on the main lane is broadly flat year on year, but the spread has narrowed, which matters more for planning than the median does. The tail of very late arrivals is shorter, largely because fewer bookings rolled.
Where we did badly
Response times on out-of-hours enquiries slipped during the second quarter, and two clients told us so in terms we deserved. We have changed the rota. Invoice queries also took too long to resolve; that work has moved to a single named contact rather than the general desk.
The full review, including the lane-by-lane figures, goes to retained clients directly. Anyone else who would like a copy should contact the desk.