When is the 'best price' not always the 'lowest price?' Freek van der Veen thinks about this question nearly every day, since it is his job to convince customers to work with his company. He shows customers that better service and more attention to their needs is worth the price they pay.

Freek is an account manager for shipping company APL Limited. From his office in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, he is responsible for working with customers throughout Europe to arrange to ship their goods from port to port.

For 150 years, APL has been shipping goods around the world, first on clipper ships then on steam ships and now on modern container ships. But APL is not the only shipping company around. A customer who wants to ship a load of computer monitors or cocoa or clothing from Rotterdam to anywhere else in the world has many other options to get those goods from place to place. Why should the customer choose one shipping company over any other?

Freek knows that many of his customers are concerned about price. And he knows that sometimes APL's rate to ship a container load of goods from one place to another might be higher than another competitor's. That means that even as he and his colleagues at APL work to keep their shipping rates competitive, they also focus on providing value to their customers, so that their services are worth the price they charge.

Freek is about to meet with representatives of a potential new customer. This company ships goods frequently to and from its offices and processing plants in Europe and Asia. Freek knows the company will care about getting good value for its money… so what should he do?

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