LONDON’s Containerisation International has announced that its first shipper sentiment poll for Asia has identified “a deep dissatisfaction with claims processing, however its members were extremely happy with container equipment and vessel space availability,” it said.

The Asia poll follows a similar survey focusing on Europe, and next month will see the inaugural North America survey.

A company statement explained that for each poll a panel is asked to score their main ocean carriers who work for them in the region, on a quarterly basis, on the services they receive, from 1 (deeply unsatisfactory) to 100 (completely satisfied).

The Asia panel, which consists of 35 shippers and freight forwarders, judged their ocean carriers on their services over the past three months.

CSAV was said to top the ranks for overall performance score with an average of 73 points. Yang Ming came second with 71, then MISC with 70. Hamburg Sud and Maersk both gained 69. PIL came in at number 10 (out of 20 carriers), with 64, the statement said.

However, the Asia panel scored the claims category as extremely low, with the overall average score reaching only 35 points.

“Some of our panel highlighted why they felt service standards were slipping. A director of an India-based freight forwarder said the service levels are going down because of the drastic reduction in headcount. Being a service industry, all the carriers, without exception, are doing themselves a great disservice by this action. They should be looking at cutting the operational costs instead of personnel costs,” the statement said.

Areas of customer service that were scored strongly by the panel included the category of accuracy of invoices, which scored an average of 73.

As to the availability of equipment and vessel space, the Asia panel was said to be “very pleased with their carriers, with the average score for space availability hitting 72 and that for container availability reaching a respectable 71.”

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