Yesterday Modern Shipper reported that peak season parcel demand is likely to exceed available capacity by 4.7 million daily shipments. In a recent panel discussion of the current capacity shortage, Logistics Management’s Contributing Editor John Schulz said that the writing is on the proverbial wall when it comes to carriers and capacity.
“It’s a carriers’ market and they’re being very selective in who they do business with,” Schulz said during the panel webinar. “This is a relationship industry. It’s a technology industry. The old ways of securing capacity and playing one carrier off of another are not going to work in the near term. Shippers and brokers have to plan their budgets and their operations accordingly using the best technology they can find and the best people they can find.”
“It’s a carriers’ market and they’re being very selective in who they do business with,” Schulz said during the panel webinar. “This is a relationship industry. It’s a technology industry. The old ways of securing capacity and playing one carrier off of another are not going to work in the near term. Shippers and brokers have to plan their budgets and their operations accordingly using the best technology they can find and the best people they can find.”
It’s clear that as a freight broker or logistics provider, you have to offer carriers a better experience than your competitors if you want to retain current carriers and add new capacity to your network. Trucker Tools’ Broker Advantage is a powerful white-label tool that you can leverage to reduce manual communications with carriers. With Broker Advantage, you can provide carriers with easy access to your loads, reduce their technology burdens, forge new relationships with new carriers and ultimately offer carriers an incentive to keeping moving your freight.
Here are five ways to diversify and grow your carrier network with Trucker Tools’ Broker Advantage.
1. Offer In-Network Carriers Added Convenience
With Trucker Tools’ Broker Advantage, you can create a customized portal for carriers within the Trucker Tools mobile app. Within your customized, company-branded hub, you can post links to specific loads, offer digital load booking and provide carriers with 24 hour/day seven days/week access to your loads and more. Broker Advantage makes it easy for your in-network carriers to interact with and communicate with your team. Instead of sending multiple emails to carriers about your loads, tire and fuel discounts, incentives and updates, and payments, simply post this information in one, easy-to-access place: your Brokerage Advantage portal.
2. Create a Customized Experience for Carriers with Mobile App and Desktop Access
What you include in your Broker Advantage portal and what you name the portal is up to you. You may want to only list your premium loads or maybe all of your available loads, or you may want to include a link for BOL/POD document upload. Perhaps you want to share tire and fuel discounts, links to book loads digitally, or information on the used trucks and trailers you have for sale. It’s your call on what to include in your portal. You also have the option to create a web-based Broker Advantage portal in lieu of or in addition to having a Broker Advantage portal in Trucker Tools’ mobile app.
3. Build Relationships with Out-of-Network Carriers with White-Label Interface
You can use Trucker Tools’ Broker Advantage to cultivate relationships with new carriers, as well. Trucker Tools’ free driver app has been downloaded more than 1.4 million times and our free software platform for carriers is used by 165,000+ carriers, most of whom run fewer than 10 trucks. Out-of-network carriers can visit your Broker Advantage portal to learn more about your company, check out your loads and see what kind of incentive programs you offer. Trucker Tools’ Broker Advantage can help you market yourself to new carriers and help you diversify and grow your carrier network.
4. Reduce the Number of Technologies Needed for Carriers To Interact with Your Brokerage
In a recent video interview with Trucker Tools, Werner Logistics’ Senior VP of Logistics Matt Parry reported that the company had received positive feedback from carriers about Carrier’s Edge, Werner’s branded name for its Broker Advantage portal. According to Parry, most of the positive carrier feedback has been about the ease of use and simplicity of the portal. Broker Advantage streamlines the technology experience for carriers and reduces the number of apps, programs, and websites they need to use in order to communicate with your company and get the information they need quickly.
5. Easy-To-Use Digital Load Booking Incentivizes Carriers To Keep Working with Your Company
When you include Trucker Tools’ Book-It-Now® technology in your customized Broker Advantage portal, you give carriers the power to book your loads through the portal. Carriers often like this feature because it allows them to book loads digitally at any time of day or night. It also reduces the number of phone calls and emails they have to answer. You can use the convenience of digital load booking to entice carriers to accept your loads in the future to further diversify and grow your carrier network. It’s worth noting that offering digital load booking to carriers through your Broker Advantage portal helps you reduce the overhead associated with booking loads, which increases the profit margins and scalability of your business.
To learn more about Broker Advantage, see Increase Carrier Stickiness, Simplify Communications with Broker Advantage.
Schedule a free demo of Trucker Tools’ Broker Advantage.
