Excellence Without Exception

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KCH Transportation is revolutionizing the 3PL with technology, simplicity, and the human touch

Crisis brings opportunity, but how intelligently a business leverages disruption during that crisis is the difference between short-term gains and enduring growth and success. In 2019, KCH Transportation was a successful 3PL notable for their quality and customer-centricity. The pandemic presented KCH with an opportunity to reshape their business for future growth, and in 2022 they embraced their imagination, strengths, and talent bench to revolutionize how freight is handled.

Jessica Franklin

“It was such a brutal time with the market … people were so desperate to pull containers, whatever it might be, and we wanted to offer our services,” recalled Jessica Franklin, the company’s AVP of Solutions. “We weren't just another brokerage to help them pull in the freight and move on. We wanted to help customers get all the way from port to door.”

On the cusp of their 20th year in operation, KCH has evolved from a small trucking company into a leader in supply chain management and optimization. They’re equipped to move drayage, oversized loads, FTL and LTL, and intermodal freight, providing customized end-to-end solutions with full logistical support. Each client has a single point of contact on a specialized team and full visibility into the process.

To offer that end-to-end service, they worked to understand the full supply chain of every account, forming collaborative relationships with their clients to build lasting partnerships, and deploying their extensive industry expertise to shift out of the constraints of the typical 3PL to become a full-service, tech-powered supply chain partner.

The company’s longstanding philosophy of keeping a diversified client base also gave them the flexibility to survive. As Franklin put it, “We have customers in everything from chemicals to agricultural machinery, we take any type of over dimensional job, we service electronics customers, and even a Tier 1 contractor for the U.S. government.”

Advanced freight technology gives KCH customers full visibility of their loads with real-time freight tracking. Predictive analytics increase efficiency and cost-effectiveness. “From live tracking, customer portal, full visibility of their loads and locations, to proof of delivery, we do whatever’s needed to make their solution as simple as possible for them,” Franklin said.

KCH holds itself to the highest standards, keeping their in-house response time to 5 minutes. “Whether internal or external, whether we're talking to our back office or to our customer side, if you're reaching out to KCH and you need something, our standard is to strive for a 5-minute response time,” she said. “We try to make ourselves available to whoever may need us.”

Franklin, whose role covers strategic operations and back office ops, was involved in the transition to the company’s state-of-the-art transportation management system (TMS) which uses tech from Salesforce and Revenova. “We went from a small business, skated right through middle and jumped headfirst into a large one, and our previous TMS was still a small business system,” she explained. “It was an immediate game-changer.”

The new TMS enables staff to pull their own data and generate specific reports for any aspect of their customer interactions. “Daily to the hour we can keep up with real-time information. It's like opening your eyes to what everybody's doing from the top down. It's really changed us,” she added.

It’s common for 3PLs to accept a customer’s business only to give back freight they can’t handle. KCH takes pride in their ability to keep commitments. “We don't give freight back,” Franklin asserted. “If we take it and accept it and give you a spot quote or rate and we tell you we can cover it, if we can't, we are not going to give it back to you. KCH is going to take the loss. We will take it on the chin because that is what we told you we would take it for.”

Straddling both strategic and back-office ops gives Franklin the opportunity to dive deep into any account, branch, or any aspect of process improvement and customer development. Because operators are booking freight nonstop, they rarely have the time to scrutinize accounts to pinpoint opportunities to provide the best customer service possible, so Franklin takes that leap.

She also works closely with the KCH Talent Acquisition Team. “If a location comes on board, or a new account has landed and we know its growth is going to be astronomical, we put those predictive analytics together. We use our metrics and our technology to get with the Talent Acquisition Team and let them find what locations will need support to handle that fluctuation.” The company’s seven branches are located where both abundant business and talent come together. Phoenix, Dallas, and Tampa, the company’s most recent branch locations, were opened in part because of the talent recruitability.

“We're the ones who will come in, secure your problem, find solutions and get you out of that situation,” she concluded. “We want to be that partner for you."