If you’re a veteran of the transportation industry, you know that the freight market ebbs and flows. Rates and the availability of trucks fluctuate throughout the year based on demand. If you’ve been working in this business for any length of time, you also know that when demand goes up, it takes time for truck capacity to match demand. During that initial period when demand for truck capacity goes up, there’s a gap when there aren’t enough trucks in the market to immediately meet the higher demand. The result? The price to move a load is higher.
Over the next few months, demand for truck capacity is likely going to increase considerably. Most schools, colleges and universities will resume some amount of in-person instruction in August and September. Even with the challenges posed by COVID-19, students are still going to need new computers, clothes, office supplies, dorm furnishings and more this fall, which means many consumers will be shopping online. The holiday season starts shortly after students go back to school. This holiday season, the number of people shopping online is poised to be record-breaking, as businesses and consumers look to reduce COVID-19 exposure.
The question is, are you ready for this upcoming capacity crunch?
Eliminate One-Load Wonders, Book Repeat Loads with High-Quality Carriers
When capacity is tight, your staff members may scramble to find qualified capacity to cover your shippers’ loads.If you’re like many brokers, your team may turn to load boards during a capacity crunch. But when your staff members use load boards to find truck capacity for a load, they’re likely to end up using a new carrier, a carrier who has never worked with your brokerage before. Do you really want to rely on carriers you don’t know when demand is at its peak? When you use load boards in your operations, it’s also difficult for your staff members to keep track of which carriers performed at a high level and to book repeat loads with those carriers.
With Trucker Tools’ digital freight matching platform, you can search for truck capacity from within your list of preferred carriers. Trucker Tools’ digital freight matching helps you narrow your capacity searches in a way that load boards can’t. Trucker Tools’ digital freight matching shows you the best capacity matches within your network of preferred carriers with the best matches at the top of the list. This helps you book repeat loads with high-performing carriers, strengthening your relationships with those key carriers before the capacity crunch hits.
Optimize Your Operations for Efficiency with Trucker Tools’ Smart Capacity Digital Freight Matching Platform
Time is everything in this business. The digital freight matching offered by Trucker Tools’ Smart Capacity matches your open loads with available qualified truck capacity in seconds. Your staff members don’t have to log into several different loads boards, sift through pages and pages of emails from carriers, or make a dozen phone calls just to find a truck to cover a single load. With Trucker Tools’ digital freight matching, finding qualified truck capacity takes seconds or minutes, not hours. If you integrate Trucker Tools’ digital freight matching with your TMS, your staff members can even view available truck capacity within the TMS interface.
Onboarding new carriers is a time-consuming process. Using Trucker Tools’ digital freight matching to cultivate strategic relationships with high-performing carriers helps eliminate one-load-wonders. Reducing the amount of time that your operations staff members spend onboarding new carriers helps you increase operational efficiency for your freight brokerage, which can boost your freight volume and profit margins.
Trucker Tools’ Digital Freight Matching Offers You a Major Advantage Over Your Competitors
When truck capacity tightens, you need to leverage every advantage that you can to beat out your competition. The beauty of Trucker Tools’ digital freight matching platform is that it’s a private network. You don’t face the same level of competition from other brokers that is common on load boards and other public freight marketplaces during a capacity crunch. Trucker Tools’ digital freight matching eliminates the noise you get on load boards, connecting you quickly with the qualified truck capacity you need, when you need it most.
It’s also important to know that approximately 950,000 truckers have downloaded Trucker Tools’ free driver app. When capacity gets tight and you need to look outside your network of preferred carriers, you can tap into that pool of 950,000 truckers using Trucker Tools’ free driver app. More than 135,000 small to mid-sized trucking companies also use the carrier version of our Smart Capacity digital freight matching platform, which expands your options for additional truck capacity even more.
Want to increase your efficiency and margins further? Read Four Reasons To Use Book It Now® for Brokers. To learn more about how Trucker Tools’ digital freight matching can help you prepare for the upcoming capacity crunch, schedule a demo with our sales team.
