The Touchbase Features Our Customers Are Loving Most

Since launching our new TMS and Touchbase Customer Portal, our customers have been getting to grips with a completely new way of managing their freight with Browns. From booking and tracking to finding documents and keeping an eye on deliveries, there is plenty to explore within the new system.

While Touchbase includes a wide range of functionality, there are naturally a few features that have started to stand out. Some are making everyday tasks quicker, while others are giving customers access to information, they previously might have needed to contact us for.

So, which features are proving particularly useful?

Live tracking that gives more than a status

Being able to follow a consignment after it has been collected is naturally one of the biggest advantages of the new system. Touchbase gives customers access to live status updates, dynamic tracking, ETAs, two-hour delivery windows and notifications, providing a much clearer picture of what is happening with their freight.

For customers, the useful part is not simply knowing that a delivery is out for delivery. Having a more specific idea of when it is expected to arrive can help with planning at the delivery point, updating colleagues or keeping their own customers informed without having to chase Browns for another update.

“The tracking has made a real difference for us. We can check where a delivery is and give our own customers an update without having to chase anyone for the information.”

With so much information now available directly through Touchbase, checking the portal can often be the quickest place to start when you want to know how a delivery is progressing.

PODs and documents, without the email hunt

We all know the feeling of searching through an inbox for a document you know is in there somewhere. Proofs of delivery in particular are often needed long after the actual transport movement has finished, which can traditionally mean finding an old email or asking for another copy.

Touchbase puts PODs, invoices, rates and other important account information within the same environment as your bookings and consignments. That means customers can retrieve the documents they need themselves, whenever they need them, rather than waiting for somebody at Browns to send them over.

It is not necessarily the flashiest feature of a new TMS, but it is exactly the kind of functionality that can make the working day a little easier. If you regularly need PODs or invoices, your Touchbase account should now be one of the first places you look.

A clearer picture at collection and delivery

One of our personal favourites is the addition of photographs at collection and delivery. Tracking information can tell you what stage a consignment has reached, but sometimes having a visual record provides the extra context you actually need.

As information is captured by the applications being used throughout the Browns operation, collection and delivery photographs can feed back into Touchbase alongside the rest of the consignment record. This helps customers see more of what is happening at both ends of the journey without relying solely on written updates.

“The photos are really useful when we need to understand what happened at collection or delivery. It gives us that extra bit of visibility without having to ask for more information.”

It is a small example of the wider reason we introduced our new TMS in the first place: connecting more of what happens operationally with the information our customers can see.

Repeat bookings just got easier

If you send freight from the same locations regularly, repeatedly entering identical information can quickly become one of those jobs nobody particularly enjoys. Touchbase booking presets are designed to remove some of that repetition by allowing frequently used information to be reused when making future bookings.

For someone making an occasional booking, that might only save a small amount of time. For a business arranging the same or similar movements every day or every week, those saved minutes soon start to add up and can make the overall booking process much smoother.

Scheduled bookings take that idea a step further for predictable movements, while businesses handling greater volumes can also make use of bulk imports. The aim is not to make every customer book freight in exactly the same way, but to give them options that suit how frequently and how much they send.

If your team is still entering the same information manually each time, it is worth exploring the booking tools available within Touchbase or speaking to us about the best way to manage your regular movements.

Getting a price and booking in one journey

Live pricing is another feature that has made the process of arranging freight much more straightforward. Customers can enter their shipment details, see the available pricing and continue into booking from within the same environment rather than treating a quote and a booking as two completely separate tasks.

That is particularly useful when you are trying to arrange transport quickly. Instead of sending a request, waiting for a response and then returning to confirm the booking, the information you need is available through Touchbase so you can make a decision and keep things moving.

“It is much easier being able to get the price and make the booking in the same place. We can see the options straight away and get the job booked without waiting around.”

For straightforward freight movements, the new process puts much more of the booking journey directly into the customer's hands, while the Browns team remains available whenever something needs a little more discussion.

More control over who can see what

Touchbase is not designed to be useful to just one person within a business. User and permission management means customers can give different colleagues access to the parts of the account they need, helping information reach the right people without everything having to pass through one central contact.

Someone in accounts might primarily need access to invoices, while a warehouse colleague may want to check delivery progress and another member of the team may be responsible for making bookings. Giving each person appropriate access can make Touchbase much more useful across the wider organisation.

It also supports one of the biggest changes our new TMS is intended to deliver: making transport information easier to access without creating more administration in the process. If several people within your business regularly need Browns information, it may be worth reviewing how your Touchbase access is currently set up.

And there is plenty more to explore

These are just some of the features customers are beginning to make use of, and the way you use Touchbase will naturally depend on how your business manages its freight. Businesses processing larger or more frequent volumes, for example, can go further with bulk imports, scheduled bookings and API integrations that can help automate routine processes.

Behind the portal, our new TMS connects what customers see with the systems being used by Browns drivers, warehouse teams and operational colleagues. As a consignment progresses, information captured throughout its journey can feed back into Touchbase, helping to create one continuous digital record from booking through to delivery.

That connection is ultimately what makes the new system much more than a new-look customer portal. It gives customers more ways to manage their freight themselves, while giving them greater visibility into what is happening once their booking reaches the Browns operation.

What's your favourite Touchbase feature? 

We expect the features customers value most will continue to change as everyone spends more time using the new system. You might love being able to find a POD in seconds, rely on the live tracking every day or discover that booking presets save your team far more time than you expected.

If there is a Touchbase feature that is already making your life easier, we would love to hear about it. And if you feel like you are only scratching the surface of what the new portal can do, get in touch with the Browns team and we can help you explore the functionality available to your account.