How CTPAT Software Makes Sending Questionnaires Easy

For most shippers, maintaining a CTPAT certification is a tedious and exhausting process that demands a great deal of time and energy. While certification benefits like meeting customer requirements and faster customs entry are well worth the effort, it’s not something many shipping pros enjoy doing — especially when it comes to sending questionnaires to your business partners at least once per year.

Even with the best intentions, sending CTPAT questionnaires is a messy, resource-intensive, and frustrating process that most organizations dread — usually because it disrupts the many other pressing tasks and initiatives already filling your plate. Fortunately, there is an easier way. Today, we’re covering what you can do to streamline the process and how you can use Veroot to send and manage questionnaires.

Fortunately, there is an easier way. Today, we’re covering what you can do to streamline the process and how you can use Veroot to send and manage questionnaires.

How to Simplify Your CTPAT Questionnaire Process

For years, shippers have been manually sending, tracking, and grading their CTPAT questionnaires and enduring the annual headache as a necessary evil.

The process usually looks something like this:

• Prepare an email explaining the purpose and importance of the questionnaire 
• Save the questionnaire as a PDF or Word document
• Attach the questionnaire to the aforementioned email
• Gather the email addresses for your primary compliance contact for each of your business partners

Send each email individually or blind copy as many people as possible to a single email (and risk being sent to the spam folder)

And that’s just the beginning. Then you have to track incoming responses, grade each questionnaire, identify which partners haven’t replied, send regular reminders until all partners complete the questionnaire, and create unique action plans for partners who scored low.

CTPAT management software automates the questionnaire and action plan process, saving you countless hours (and headaches) while also simplifying the ordeal for business partners. Leveraging this solution can boost response rates and allow you to manage everything from a single dashboard.

CTPAT management software transforms something everyone loathes into a streamlined and user-friendly experience that ultimately improves everyone’s safety and security.

How to Send CTPAT Questionnaires Using Veroot CTPAT Management Software

Veroot CTPAT management software offers an all-in-one solution that facilitates CTPAT compliance across your entire organization and supply chain. And a core element is our smart questionnaire deployment.

Here is a step-by-step overview of how to use Veroot to send and manage your CTPAT questionnaires:

• Register with Veroot: During this process, you’ll provide a few key pieces of information, such as your name, email, company information, and payment details. It takes less than ten minutes to sign up.
• Provide your contact list: The next step is to send Veroot a list of all business partners, which should include the name of each company and the first name, last name, and email address of each of your primary contacts. These contacts will be responsible for completing the surveys.
• Choose which documents you want to send: Veroot offers a suite of standard documents, including the security questionnaire and training and standard operating procedure documents that complement the questionnaire. You can also send optional documents like anti-bribery or code of conduct contracts.
• Send your questionnaire: With one button, you can send CTPAT questionnaires to all business partners in the system. They will receive a link to fill out the survey and review the standard operating procedures, and they will also receive automated reminders if they forget to complete their questionnaire.
• Check your dashboard: Each time a partner completes their questionnaire, the Veroot system will calculate the grade, alert you via the Veroot dashboard, and send you an email notification (if you’d like). Veroot also automatically computes feedback and remediation actions so you can easily create and send action plans. And you don’t have to worry about tracking who has or hasn’t completed their questionnaire or whether a survey is approaching its expiration. The Veroot system does all of this for you too.

In addition to sending, tracking, and managing CTPAT questionnaires, Veroot also makes it easy to maintain compliance with a host of other features, such as canned management review templates. This way, you can log and timestamp all management review meeting discussions, export the details to a PDF, and share them with your supply chain security specialist. With easy action plan tracking, you can ensure you always have well-documented proof of how you’re working with business partners to meet compliance requirements.

Earning and maintaining CTPAT certification is essential to your business success, and thanks to CTPAT management software, it no longer has to drain your time and energy. By leveraging automation to send and track your questionnaires, you can get back hundreds of hours and ensure your partners are doing their part to strengthen security.

Ready to learn more?