When your capacity sourcing software is real-time, you can cover loads faster and spend less time chasing after capacity that’s already been taken by another broker like you do with load boards. Real-time capacity sourcing tech also can digitize offers and negotiations, saving you and the carriers you deal with valuable time. At the end of the day, real-time carrier sourcing tech better positions you to satisfy your shippers’ needs. With real-time technology, you can research potential new lanes with ease and provide a better technology experience to carriers, which strengthens your ability to provide capacity to your shippers for the long-term.
Real-Time Reason #1 – You Need To Know What Capacity Is Available Now
When you use load boards, it probably goes something like this: you log into the load board, search for trucks, call 10 or so carriers before you find one that actually still has the capacity they’d posted to the load board. The very reason that load boards can be frustrating to use is that they aren’t real-time. Load boards require that the carrier that posted the capacity deletes the posting once the truck is no longer available, but that often doesn’t happen. The result is that you’re often looking at stale, outdated data on load boards and it can take quite some time to find capacity that is truly available.
Real-time capacity sourcing tech like Trucker Tools’ Smart Capacity uses GPS technology and transaction data to provide you with real-time, accurate data on which trucks are available today and will be in the future. As trucks are booked by other brokers, that capacity is automatically removed from Smart Capacity so that you’re never looking at old data. Real-time capacity information helps you cover loads faster. If you work on commission, increased efficiency may even increase your take-home pay.
Real-Time Reason #2 – Real-Time Tech Digitizes Offers and Negotiations
Negotiating the price on a load manually can be a time-consuming process. It usually involves multiple phone calls and/or emails with the carrier and those phone calls and emails take time. In a survey of brokers last year, 40 percent of those surveyed reported that it takes between one and two hours to cover a load using phone calls, emails or load boards. Even if it only takes you 10 minutes per load to negotiate a rate with the carrier, that’s still time lost — and potential earnings lost if you work on a commission.
Real-time capacity sourcing technology lets you communicate with carriers much faster than you can via phone, email or load board. With real-time carrier sourcing tech like Smart Capacity, owner operators and carriers can send you instant digital rate quotes through Trucker Tools’ mobile app and free carrier software platform. You can reply to these quotes from within Smart Capacity with just a few clicks of your computer mouse. With Smart Capacity, you also can search for capacity by lane, dates, weight and freight type in a matter of seconds and then send messages about your load to the carriers in the search results. The real-time design of the platform means carriers receive messages near-instantly. Digitize offers and negotiations further by posting some of your loads as Book It Now® loads to Smart Capacity. Book It Now® loads can be instantly booked at your listed rate by carriers and drivers using the Trucker Tools app and carrier platform.
Real-Time Reason #3 – You’re Better Able To Satisfy Your Shippers
The most compelling reason to use real-time capacity sourcing tech is that it helps you better serve your customers. With access to real-time capacity data, you can cover their shipments faster and easily research capacity options in new lanes. Software platforms such as Smart Capacity make it easier to find capacity for difficult to cover lanes and loads, too. Some of your customers may even prefer to work with freight brokers who are forward-thinking and who use technology like Smart Capacity.
Using real-time carrier sourcing tech also can benefit your relationships with carriers, strengthening your carrier network and ability to meet your customers’ needs. Real-time carrier sourcing tech like Smart Capacity reduces the number of phone calls, load boards and email messages that carriers must contend with. Sending you a digital rate quote through Trucker Tools’ carrier platform takes less than a minute, which is much faster than negotiating a rate by phone with you.
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