Shippers have endless options when it comes to moving their products: truckload, LTL, expedited, intermodal, air, rail, brokered or direct. As a freight broker or logistics provider, there are steps you can take to stand out to shippers and differentiate yourself from your competition. One of the best places to start is with real-time visibility because it continues to be a top ask from shippers. To stand out to shippers, you have to be able to provide them with continuous, real-time visibility of their shipments. You also can attract new shippers by focusing your resources on shipper service and by developing a reliable network of carriers.
1. Provide the Visibility Consistency Shippers
Need
Shippers are looking for partners with outstanding track records, particularly around real-time visibility. They often require near-continuous load tracking that starts when the trucker picks up the load and continues until the load is delivered to the receiver’s facility. Some shippers require that 75 percent of stops be timestamped and that stop entry and stop exit times are recorded. They also may require location pings every hour/60 miles and geofence timestamps for delivery for the load to be rated consistently visible.
Trucker Tools’ real-time visibility platform provides 100 percent stop visibility and location updates every five minutes, whether the truck is moving or idling at a stop. With Trucker Tools, you can meet even the most stringent shipper requirements around visibility consistency.
2. Meet and Exceed Your Shippers’ Visibility
Compliance Requirements
In an ideal world, shippers would have 100 percent visibility of their freight 100 percent of the time. But that’s obviously not the world we live in. The trucking industry is a fragmented one, comprised of thousands of owner operators and independent trucking companies. With this in mind, many shippers are requiring 70 percent or higher visibility compliance rates from freight brokers and 3PLs. Visibility compliance rate represents the percentage of loads on which you have start to finish digital visibility.
The average visibility compliance rate achieved by brokers and logistics companies who use Trucker Tools’ real-time visibility platform is 75 percent. Some routinely achieve visibility compliance rates in the 80 and 90 percent range.
3. Choose Technology That Integrates with Your
Shippers’ Software
A recent survey published in DC Velocity’s September issue found that 76 percent of the shippers surveyed use software in their transportation operations to improve customer service (delivery on the date promised), while 70 percent use software to optimize logistics across their supply chain. When you use flexible technology in your operations like Trucker Tools’ real-time visibility platform, you can digitally share visibility data with your shippers in real-time. Trucker Tools’ real-time visibility platform integrates with shipper freight tracking platforms FourKites, MacroPoint, 10/4 and Project44. Your ability to share visibility data with your shippers through this software integration makes your brokerage/3PL that much more appealing to shippers, plain and simple.
4. Focus Your Human Resources on Customer
Satisfaction, Not Repetitive Manual Tasks
Instead of focusing your staffing on manual work (check-calls, load boards, sending emails to carriers and shippers), let Trucker Tools’ real-time visibility and digital freight matching platforms take on these repetitive tasks. Trucker Tools’ visibility and digital freight matching platforms automate load tracking and how you find and book truck capacity. Moving your human resources away from manual tasks gives you more time and staff to devote to shipper service, which helps you stand out to prospective shippers. As Mark Southey, Managing Partner for Traffix, noted in a recent webinar with Trucker Tools and DC Velocity, “We want our teams to be focusing on relationship building and more analytical tasks. Anywhere we can leverage technology to assist with lower tier responsibilities, we’ve totally bought in.”
5. Develop a Loyal, Dependable Network of
Carriers
As Tom Curee, Kingsgate Logistics’ Senior VP of Strategy & Innovation, said in a recent webinar with Trucker Tools and FreightWaves, carriers are looking for true partners. One of the best ways to develop a loyal carrier network that you can rely upon is to treat carriers and owner operators like partners. It’s important to ask your carriers about their technology preferences. It’s also important to use carrier-friendly solutions like Trucker Tools’ driver app in your operations. Doing so can help you keep owner operators and small carriers, in particular, in your company’s ecosystem. With Trucker Tools’ driver app, carriers have free access to 17+ free tools and features that save them time and money. In addition to using Trucker Tools’ driver app for tracking loads for brokers, carriers can use the app to find real-time information on fuel prices, weigh scales, parking, truck stops, rest areas, routing, Wal-Mart stores, loads and more.
Read Are You Ready for Peak Shipping Season? to find out how you can use digital freight matching this holiday season to combat a tighter-than-ever capacity market. Schedule a free demo of Trucker Tools’ real-time visibility platform and digital freight matching.
