“Reaching 300 members in Coop was a very exciting moment and more, bearing in mind it was in the middle of the pandemic”
This week we are publishing an interview with Isabel Magdaleno, the Agent Coordinator of Cooperative Logistics Network. Isabel is contacted by our members regularly for all their questions and for resolving any issues they might face within the network. She also supervises The Coop’s Agent Coordination Team ensuring high performance and productive output.
Before joining the Coop, Isabel has almost twenty years of experience in education, translation, and in international departments of various companies from different fields, dealing with customers from all over the world. She has gathered a broad experience in multicultural environments where she was fully committed to achieving maximum customer satisfaction.
Q. Tell us a bit about your experience with the Coop team so far.
A. I have learned a lot from my co-workers at The Coop and my overall experience here has been a great one. My work consists of helping the Coop members from across the world with any questions or problems they face daily. I try my best to help sort out all the problems of our members and working in a multicultural team has taught me how to do my job sensibly and meticulously.
Q. How do you feel about The Coop reaching more than 300 members?
A. This has been one of the greatest achievements of our network in the last 6 years! Coop’s team also celebrated this moment. I strongly feel that several factors such as reputable and solvent international partners, a reasonable membership fee, the availability of a range of free online tools, a highly productive yearly conference, and the obligation to cooperate with other members and share a part of the shipments are some of the factors that are encouraging more and more quality forwarders to join our network. Currently, we have our presence in 132 countries around the world and I am sure that this number will continue to grow.
| Q. Which is the most challenging aspect of working with The Coop? How do you deal with it?
A. The most difficult element of my job consists of responding to issues and enquiries from hundreds of agents from so many different countries. I strongly feel that timely response, empathy towards the complaining agent, and being familiar with the agent’s history are three ways of effective handling of the member’s issues. Moreover, I have plenty of understanding about dealing with people from all over the world and my previous job experiences in overseas departments have certainly helped me in this regard. Q. How does the Coop help to promote the brands of the member companies? A. Every Friday, The Coop publishes one news on their website about the recent achievements of a member which is also shared on our social media handles. This definitely helps in increasing the visibility of the member’s brand. Moreover, we have several other free PR and marketing materials for the members like a customizable brochure for the members for presenting to their clients, a personalized Powerpoint presentation for use in sales meeting, a tailor-made video about their company that can be used for promotional purposes and even a personalized website for augmenting their online presence! |
“I would like to remind the members about the importance of cooperation within the network. The more you cooperate with other agents the greater are you chances of increasing your business. In the present super-competitive environment, mutual cooperation is the only way for independent forwarders to survive and succeed.
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Q. Which aspects would you encourage Coop members to boost?
A. We always encourage our members to boost their online presence and take special care to be active on social networking sites. Right now having a strong online presence is important like never before. Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are ideal platforms for promoting the companies while actively interacting with the consumers. Moreover, liking, commenting, and sharing the posts of your clients/partners/network will help to boost your company’s visibility and also prompt others to do the same with your posts.
Q. What is the potential of The Coop’s TMS FreightViewer?
A. Our innovative online tool which can be used by the members at no extra cost will help to reduce the workload of the members by eliminating the process of manual quote generation for good. When used in the right way it will provide them with one single easy to use platform for obtaining freight rates and sending accurate quotations instantly. Moreover, our IT team has been working relentlessly to improve the features of this platform and in December we have finally entered into a partnership with SHIPCO which will allow our agents to access LCL rates in more than 30 countries from the FreightViewer. Our recent additions to the platform have made this tool even more dynamic and useful than before and we are hoping that with time more and more members will utilize this software to substitute many of their manual work processes.
Q. Before concluding, is there any important advice you will like to give to The Coop members?
A. I would like to remind Coop members about the importance of cooperation within the network and participation in Meetings. The more they cooperate with other agents the greater are their chances of increasing your business. In the present super-competitive environment, mutual cooperation is the only way for independent forwarders to survive and succeed. And one way to meet all the members at once is by participating in our Annual Meetings. Our members always say that after the meetings, they have closed many deals and agreements.