If you work in a freight brokerage or logistics business on a carrier sales or operations team, you may think that cold calling carriers is the best (or only) way to source capacity. You’ve likely gotten used to making five, 10 or even 20 phone calls to different carriers just to cover a single load. It’s important to know, however, that there is a better way to cover loads. Digital freight matching technology uses real-time data to connect freight brokers looking for trucks with carriers/owner operators looking for loads. What differentiates digital freight matching from other capacity sourcing methods like manual phone calls and emails or load boards is that digital freight matching’s truck availability information is based on real-world data.
How Digital Freight Matching Works
The digital freight matching technology included in Trucker Tools’ Smart Capacity uses GPS-based truck availability and transaction data from Trucker Tools’ platforms to provide you with highly accurate truck availability information. Smart Capacity integrates with your company’s transportation management system, which allows carriers (of your choosing) to see what loads you have available. This exchange of real-time data between freight brokers and carriers is critical. In fact, it’s what makes digital freight matching technology markedly different from load boards. Thanks to the integration with your TMS, when a load is booked in your TMS it’s automatically removed from carrier search results. The opposite is true, as well. If one of the 175,000 active carriers on Trucker Tools’ carrier platform books one of their trucks with another broker, that truck will no longer appear available in your Smart Capacity search results.
Move from Cold Calls to Warm Leads
If you’re someone who works on commission, you already know that securing capacity quickly frees up time that you can use to broker more freight volume. Armed with the real-time truck data in Smart Capacity, you can restrict your phone calls to only those carriers that are likely to have capacity when and where you need it. This is a much more efficient process than cold-calling every carrier on your list each time you need to cover a load. With Smart Capacity, when you actually do pick up the phone to call the carrier, you can have a shorter conversation that is focused on finalizing the rate. With Smart Capacity’s easy to use search function, you also can book backhauls and/or future loads in the same conversation with the dispatcher.
Boost Efficiency Further with Book-It-Now®
Book-It-Now®, which is available in the Smart Capacity platform, takes efficiency a step further by allowing carriers to book your loads online and owner operators to book your loads with Trucker Tools’ mobile app. All Book-It-Now® loads that you post to Smart Capacity must include your preferred rate for the load. When carriers see your Book-It-Now® load in Trucker Tools’ app or carrier platform, they can either book the load immediately at the listed rate or send you an alternate rate quote through the app/platform. When an owner operator or carrier does book one of your Book-It-Now® loads, the appointment is automatically scheduled in your TMS thanks again to the integration between Smart Capacity and your TMS. Shortly thereafter, the driver and the carrier dispatcher receive automated emails confirming the booking. Book-It-Now® can save you a significant amount of time, which is especially valuable if you work on commission. Book-It-Now® also saves carriers time, which can serve as an incentive to carriers to stay in your network and keep running your company’s freight.
Read “Why Trucker Tools Should Be Your #1 Source for Truck Capacity.”
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