Company

Direct Recovery Solutions was founded in 2000 to target a market underserved by existing third party parcel audit firms. Our scalable technology offered the competitive advantage of serving smaller companies (under $500k/year total spend), while also delivering uncompromised enterprise level services to large, decentralized FedEx and UPS shippers.

Today we continue to serve a breadth of customers from small catalogs to Fortune 1000 corporations. Our service offering focuses on reducing transportation spend through our parcel audit, contract optimization, reporting efficiencies, and parcel claims management. For larger customers we offer a full service transportation spend management solution together with best-of-breed industry partners.

Since 2000, eroding margins have driven the parcel audit industry to offer cost reduction services at a per-transaction fee or monthly subscription basis. DRS has reacted by developing efficiencies and reducing costs to guarantee a net value to our customers. We continue to operate primarily on a gain-share model with satisfaction based contract terms for maximum customer benefit. With free setup, and contingency billing, DRS work goes directly to improve the bottom line. It's what we call a no-brainer, no-risk value proposition.

Direct Recovery offer six cost-saving solutions for shippers. The Parcel Audit is the starting point for all customers. Once implemented, Direct Recovery reviews the customer’s shipping profile to intelligently recommend additional cost-saving solutions.

Solution #1: Parcel Audit

The Service Audit identifies late shipments with no valid carrier exception (holiday, weather, mechanical, address, etc) and secures the guaranteed service refunds (GSR’s) for applicable shipping costs. Identifies “No Proof of Shipment” and “No Proof of Delivery” airbills and secures refunds for shipping costs.

The Invoice Audit screens for invoice/airbill duplication, rate compliance, invalid accessorial charges for residential delivery, address correction, fuel surcharge, Saturday delivery/pickup many more accessorial charges billed in error.

Benefit - Cost

1% - 5% recovery. Offered mostly as gain-share with standard contingency rate of 50% of recoveries. Tiered rate may be offered if volume warrants. Per-transaction or subscription pricing is also available if preferred.

Case Studies

Great West Life & Annuity Insurance Company, an insurance company with revenue exceeding $3 Billion, recovered over 5% total FedEx spend from 2002 through 2005.

New Braunfels Smokehouse, a family owned fine meats and mail order catalog company, recovered 4.5% on FedEx parcel audit from 2002 through 2009.

Tractor & Equipment Company, a heavy equipment sales and service center in the Southeast with 21 locations, recovered 4% of FedEx spend from 2003 through 2009.

Volvo Truck North America recovered 12% of FedEx billings for first six months of the parcel audit when implemented in 2000. This was an unexpectedly high anomaly, especially since Direct Recovery replaced a freight payment company that claimed to have been performing a parcel audit of FedEx traffic.

Solution #2: Contract Optimization

Contracts are optimized when effectively aligned with your company shipping profile, your market segment, and even your location. Once we understand your shipping profile through our parcel audit service, we are uniquely equipped to model a prospective carrier contract against your shipping pattern. We can analyze competitive offers through a complete re-rating of recent invoices to see exactly where potential benefits (and pitfalls) lie.

Rate Analysis provides you with the results of our assessment which you can use to select or negotiate with a carrier.

Rate Negotiation utilizes our direct negotiations expertise with the carrier(s) to assure you optimal rates while safeguarding existing concessions and seeking new concessions that match your unique shipping profile. Our customers are shrewd enough to negotiate carrier terms on their own. What they lack is the inside intelligence and experience we bring to the table to help establish new baseline precedents for all future carrier negotiations.

Benefit - Cost

Contract savings of 4% - 12%. Rate Analysis is provided at fixed cost, quoted according to complexity of analysis. Rate Negotiation is provided for a limited gain-share of future benefit.

Case Studies

Atlanta Barber, a professional barber and beauty supply company, used Direct Recovery rate negotiation services to secure an average 8% rate discount over a new 3 year, establishing a new contract precedent to base future carrier contracts against.

Solution #3: Parcel Claims Management and Recovery

Identifies lost or damaged shipments and provides comprehensive claims management and recovery with minimal involvement from customer. Direct Recovery secures carrier refunds for the insured value of the merchandise, or up to $100 for uninsured packages, plus shipping charges. Simplifies a tedious manual claims process with full visibility to customer, assures no valid claim is missed, and holds carrier accountable.

Direct Recovery handles all carrier interactions so customer can focus on business. Only clients with an aggressive in-house claims processing effort can truly appreciate this value.

Benefit - Cost

Historic recoveries of 0.5% to 4% of total spend. Service usually offered on gain-share basis with a cap on contingency for claims over $100.

Case Studies

Seta Corporation: Largest jewellery catalog company in the world and Direct Recovery client since 2000. Seta has a policy of immediate replacement re-ships to assure customer satisfaction. Direct Recovery remotely identifies reship information through VPN, retrieves pertinent invoice detail, builds invoice suitable for UPS claims submission, and files damage/loss claim with carrier. Direct Recovery handles all claims processing and supplies customer with resolution and refund check from UPS.

Seta offers uncompromised service to customer while being compensated for any lost or damaged shipments. For the 2 year period ending March 2007, refunds from claims processing alone represented 5.1% of Seta's total UPS spend.

Solution #4: Shipping Intelligence

Intelligent reporting provides access to information critical for managing shipping operations. All audit results are documented in weekly reporting, delivered either as emailed spreadsheet or posted to a secure website. Online access affords the client summary and drill-down detail reporting of their history with DRS. Business intelligence and data-mining services are constantly improved to provide better insight and to support critical decisions.

Custom reports are available upon request, or by client-design with our Ad Hoc report writer. DRS can also provide custom file uploads to integrate into most accounting / ERP / WMS systems. Redundant data back-up inherent in all systems. Details and report samples available upon request.

Benefit - Cost

Better logistics management with more informed perspective. Mostly free with audit services. Extensive customization or programming will be quoted per request or as weekly surcharge.

Case Studies

Softmart, an online software vendor, discontinued the parcel audit to comply with a guaranteed service refund waiver but maintained Direct Recovery reporting services on per-airbill fee to access weekly proprietary reports instead of stock carrier invoice.

Solutions #5: Add-on and Custom Solutions

Non-carrier parcel insurance through national underwriter cuts cost by 40% without sacrificing quality, and reduces payment time through simplified claim process. This can be combined with parcel claim management service.

Dimensional weight surcharges can be avoided with our Dim weight verification process. Fraud detection, cost-coding, rate compliance, customized processing or reporting are also available once the parcel audit is implemented.

Benefit - Cost

Savings >0.2%. Cost is gain-share or quoted.

Case Studies

Viewsonic, global provider of visual technology, and DRS client since 2002, receives a weekly file to sync airbill-level account coding detail with accounting system. Cost coding detail is extracted from Reference Notes fields according to client-provided logic.

Birthday Express, mail order company, recovered undisclosed savings windfall for retroactive Dim Weight verification audit.

Solution #6: Transportation Spend Management

For larger companies we offer a full service transportation spend management solution including logistics consulting, freight payment, LTL management by combining best-of-breed solutions among our valued partners. Call for details.

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