For shippers, real-time freight visibility serves more than one purpose. Knowing where a load is located allows the shipper to keep its customer updated on when the shipment will arrive and to drive greater customer satisfaction. Real-time visibility also drives shippers’ resource management and decision-making. Shippers use real-time visibility data to analyze and evaluate the efficiency of their operations, as well.
It goes without saying that shippers prefer to partner with logistics companies/brokers who can provide real-time visibility data because it helps them run their businesses better. If you are currently struggling to provide digital, real-time visibility to your shipper customers, read on to learn more about how and why shippers use real-time visibility, what makes Trucker Tools’ visibility solution different from others and how you can use real-time visibility as an attractive service offering to diversify your shipper base.
How Shippers Use Real-Time Visibility To Improve Their Operations
In Gartner’s Market Guide for Real-Time Transportation Visibility Platforms published in February, Gartner VP Analyst Bart De Muynck says this about the importance of real-time visibility for shippers: “Providing visibility is a core part of supply chain technology and it plays a complementary function that supports different supply chain functions such as transportation management, warehouse management, yard management and fleet management.”
When shippers have real-time visibility of their freight when it’s on a truck, they are better equipped to manage their staffing and other resources at specific docks as efficiently as possible. If, for example, a shipper knows that 20 trucks will be arriving at the same time, the shipper can add more staff members to those docks.
As Muynck also points out, real-time visibility also helps shippers better understand the efficiency and efficacy of their internal operations, as well as those of its partners: “It (real-time visibility) allows leaders insights into what is happening in the organization as well as outside the four walls of their organization to control end-to-end processes.”
The question is this: do you have technology in place that can provide these beneficial insights to your shipper customers?
Trucker Tools’ GPS-Based Real-Time Visibility
Trucker Tools’ free driver app uses the GPS in the trucker’s smart phone to determine the precise location of the shipper’s load. That location data can be viewed in real-time either directly in your transportation management system through a software integration or in Trucker Tools’ Smart Capacity real-time visibility platform. Location data is updated every five minutes to ensure that you always know where the truck/load is and that you can provide highly accurate ETAs to your shippers.
What differentiates Trucker Tools’ real-time visibility solution from other load tracking solutions is our focus on carrier experience. Carrier adoption of most digital load tracking technology is usually low for two reasons: the technology doesn’t provide tangible benefits to carriers and it isn’t transparent for carriers.
With this in mind, we’ve designed the Trucker Tools free driver app to do more than just track broker loads. In addition to the GPS-based real-time visibility tool, the Trucker Tools driver app provides truckers with 17 other tools and features that simplify life on the road. Truckers can use our driver app to access crucial real-time information on parking, routing, fuel prices, weigh scales, truck stops, rest areas, available loads, Wal-Mart locations, hospitals, doctors’ offices and more.
We’ve also made our real-time visibility tool as transparent as possible for truckers. They must agree to have a load tracked before load tracking starts and they always know exactly who is receiving the location data. Truckers also can pause or cancel load tracking directly from the driver app.
Use Real-Time Visibility To Diversify Your Shipper Base
Diversifying your customer base is beneficial because it helps you avoid dependence on any one customer and can up your freight volume. Diversification of your shipper base is always important, but it’s especially important right now as freight volumes currently are lower than normal. In a recent Trucker Tools survey, 50 percent of brokers and 3PLs who responded told us that they’re diversifying their shipper base to increase volume during the current pandemic.
The good news is that you can leverage Trucker Tools’ highly accurate, reliable real-time visibility solution to win new shipper customers. Providing accurate, real-time visibility can be added to your business’ service offerings and attract shipper customers who require digital visibility of their loads.
Schedule a demo to learn more about how our real-time visibility solution can help your business.
