Third-Party Logistics

Prague 3PL — Shipment Exceptions, Proactively Handled

Client confidentiality. Published with the client’s permission and privacy requirements. We don’t publish brand names, and non-essential identifiers may be generalized. The outcomes and workflow described are real and were reviewed with the client before publication. Additional evidence is available under NDA.

Executive summary

A third-party logistics provider in Prague, Czechia rolled out Cogniforce AI Workspace with a role-based Shipment Ops Colleague to coordinate exception handling across carriers, warehouses, and customer teams. In the first 90 days the company saw ~49% less manual exception work, ~32% faster resolution on delayed or misrouted parcels, and ~22% fewer late-delivery complaints thanks to proactive, plain-language updates. Planners and CS agents stayed in control—the Colleague handled the repetitive checks and escalated anything risky or off-policy.

Where they started

Peak season had stretched the team thin. Exceptions flooded in from multiple carriers—address issues, missed scans, customs holds, weather delays—each with different status codes and portals. Agents copied tracking data into tickets, emailed customers for missing details, and chased carriers for ETA updates. Warehouse staff fielded the same “where is my order?” questions while trying to keep outbound moving. Leadership’s brief was blunt: reduce the back-and-forth, keep customers informed, and make peaks feel like normal weeks.

Why Cogniforce

Three things made the decision straightforward. AI Workspace became the company’s operational brain: carrier SLAs, exception playbooks, customer policies, fee tables, and approved phrasing in Czech and English—versioned and access-controlled so everyone answered the same way. On top of that, the Shipment Ops Colleague worked inside those rules, reading carrier feeds, opening tickets with the right template, proposing next steps, and sending updates in the brand’s voice with a full audit trail. Finally, everything ran in EU data centres with data minimization and redaction by default, aligned to customer contracts.

What we implemented

Week one connected carrier feeds (DHL, DPD, GLS, local couriers), WMS/OMS, and the ticketing system, and we organized exception playbooks in Workspace for the top fifteen scenarios: bad address, failed delivery, customs info required, label mismatch, damaged in transit, and more. We also imported customer-specific rules (refund thresholds, tone preferences, blackout dates).

Week two introduced the Colleague in co-pilot mode. Agents reviewed and approved every draft while we tuned tone, escalation paths, and “never say” lines. The Colleague learned which cases must always escalate (hazmat, medical, high-value), when to offer pickup vs. re-delivery, and how to phrase updates without jargon.

By week three, routine exceptions ran under human supervision: the Colleague detected new issues from carrier events, verified order and address data, suggested fixes, contacted customers when needed, and posted outcomes back to the OMS and ticket. Anything that didn’t fit policy landed with a crisp summary and option set for a person to choose.

Two small tools punched above their weight:

• Label Fixer caught mismatched SKUs and duplicate labels before handoff, preventing avoidable exceptions.

• Address Validator normalized formats (street/house number quirks, diacritics) and requested missing door codes with a single, friendly prompt—less ping-pong, faster first-time success.

Day-to-day after launch

Morning queues stopped looking like a wall. Overnight exceptions arrived pre-grouped by customer and severity, with the next best action proposed. If a parcel stalled with “insufficient address,” the Colleague checked the order, validated the format, messaged the recipient once for the missing detail, and queued a re-label request for the warehouse if needed. For customs holds, it prepared a short checklist for the shipper with exactly what was missing and a secure link to upload documents. Throughout, customers received proactive status updates in plain language—what happened, what’s next, and when to expect the next touch.

Supervisors gained a calmer rhythm. Instead of micro-editing emails, they tuned playbooks weekly: tighten the window before a re-attempt, change the refund threshold for a VIP retailer, or adjust wording for a sensitive product category. One change in Workspace flowed everywhere the same day.

Measurement approach

Before go-live, the 3PL sampled time spent on exception tasks over six weeks and exported baseline metrics: average time-to-resolution by exception type, number of back-and-forth messages per case, and weekly complaint volume. After launch, the same measures came from system logs and time samples. Weekly quality reviews checked tone, accuracy, and whether the latest playbooks and fee rules were used. Any edit that appeared more than twice was folded into Workspace so the whole team benefited.

Results after 90 days

Manual effort on in-scope exceptions fell about 49%. Time-to-resolution improved about 32%, especially for bad addresses and missed scans where Address Validator and Label Fixer removed the usual guesswork. Complaint volume about late deliveries dropped about 22%, largely because the Colleague set expectations early and followed through with timely updates. Warehouse leaders reported fewer last-minute rework requests and steadier outbound, since common label problems were caught before parcels left the building.

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The AI Colleague that saved the most time

Shipment Ops Colleague is a patient dispatcher who never forgets a step. It reads carrier events, applies the correct playbook, drafts clear updates, requests missing info once (and in the recipient’s language), and records every action. When cases involve risk—dangerous goods, medical shipments, high-value items—it escalates with context and the exact options allowed under each customer’s policy. Agents keep one-click approval and can take over anytime.

Governance & data protection

Roles and permissions follow the least-privilege principle: ops, warehouse, finance, and customer teams see only what they need. Personal data is minimized and redacted from model training; retention mirrors contracts. Every action—message sent, fee applied, address corrected—has an immutable log with timestamps, versions, and sources, which simplified customer QBRs and carrier audits.

What changed for customers, partners, and the team

Retailers and shippers now receive steady, predictable updates instead of silence followed by a scramble. Recipients see clear, friendly messages that ask for exactly one thing and provide a simple way to respond. Agents spend more time on outlier cases and less time copy-pasting between portals. The office feels calmer on Mondays and during promos; peaks look like heavy days, not emergencies.

Lessons we’ll keep

Start with the five most frequent exception types and tune weekly. Keep carrier-specific quirks in Workspace, not in someone’s head. Use proactive updates early—silence fuels complaints. And keep a human gate on hazardous, medical, or high-value flows where judgment matters most.

What’s next

The team is piloting a Returns Orchestrator that generates QR codes, books pickup vs. drop-off within rules, and reconciles refunds, plus a Carrier Scorecard that grades partners on scan latency and first-attempt success so account managers can act with evidence.

Call to action

If you run 3PL operations and want exceptions handled before customers need to ask—while keeping a clean audit trail—book a tailored demo. We’ll show you Shipment Ops Colleague, Label Fixer, and the exact playbooks behind these results, adapted to your stack.

Book a tailored demo →