Clearwater Paper — Fostering Collaboration and Efficiency Across the Network

Based in Spokane, Washington, Clearwater Paper is a premier private-brand tissue manufacturer and paperboard producer. Before FourKites, the company was bogged down by home-grown technology that provided no tracking tools and little carrier communication beyond production and location inquiries, straining carrier relationships. Communication with customers was subpar and largely reactive, limited to sales conversations when issues arose. The company wanted to redefine a long-standing 'tender a load and forget it' culture into one offering higher customer service and proactive operations management.

After evaluating numerous providers, Clearwater Paper began with FourKites in 2016 — one of its earliest customers. Today it manages ~5,000 monthly loads (truckload, LTL and parcel) on the platform. Yard, dock and warehouse staff get accurate predictive ETAs regardless of appointment time, letting them reassign staff and minimize delays. Carriers gain more accurate ETAs, fewer manual check calls and reduced dwell times. The team works inside FourKites daily to resolve billing, detention, shipping, EDI, customer-service and communication bottlenecks, and leans on CSMs, customer feedback calls and the Ambassador Program. For detention from unavoidable delays, FourKites provides a single source of truth from status events to validate charges.

Clearwater Paper drastically reduced time on manual communication and tracking, improved relationships with carriers and customers, increased customer satisfaction, and reduced detention charges. ML-based ETA predictions let the team proactively manage expectations across sales, customers and carriers, identify problems sooner and fix scheduling issues faster. Validating charges from status events eliminated 'he said/she said' disputes, helping the company avoid and appeal fines.