In this blog series, Level Up Your Trucking Business, you can learn how to reduce your expenses, be more efficient and establish sound business practices now to help your owner operator business grow in the future. As an owner operator, your approach toward digital load tracking can have a significant impact on your relationships with brokers and logistics providers. In this blog, you’ll discover why digital load tracking is so important to brokers and shippers, and what load tracking choices you have as an owner operator. You’ll also find out how digital load tracking can impact your broker relationships and boost productivity.
Why Brokers Want You To Track Loads
Most shippers today require that freight brokers and logistics providers give them real-time visibility of their freight. Knowing where their freight is at any given moment allows shippers to manage their dock staffing efficiently, understand their supply chains and provide better service to their customers. In today’s world, everyone wants to know where their shipments are and shippers are no different. If brokers/3PLs can’t provide consistent load tracking/visibility data to shippers, they risk losing their shippers’ business. When a broker or 3PL asks you to use an app or your ELD to track loads digitally, they’re usually doing so because they have to meet their customers’ needs.
Load Tracking Technology Choices
Brokers may ask you to use a single function load tracking app, i.e. an app that only tracks freight. It’s important to know, however, that you have other options. You can use the Trucker Tools driver app to digitally track broker loads. The Trucker Tools driver app and its load tracking tool can be used with most shipper and broker software platforms. That means you don’t have to download a new load tracking appevery time you pull a broker a load. You also have the option of using your ELD for load tracking.
In a Trucker Tools’ survey last year, more than half of the truckers we polled told us they’re reluctant to use load tracking tech because of privacy-related concerns. It’s important to know, however, that not all load tracking tech is the same. When you use the Trucker Tools driver app to track a broker load, the entire process is transparent. You have to agree to track the load through the app before location updates can be sent to a broker through the app. Once you’ve agreed to track the load and tracking is on, you can see the name of the broker receiving the data on your smart phone. You also have the option to cancel or pause load tracking right from the Trucker Tools app.
How Digital Load Tracking Impacts Your
Relationships with Brokers
Given how important visibility is to shippers, it makes sense then that brokers and 3PLs want to work with drivers who are willing to use load tracking technology. If a broker or 3PL asks you to use a digital load tracking technology and you’re reluctant or refuse, they may decide to find another trucker to move that load. Ultimately, your decision on whether to use a digital load tracking technology on a broker’s load can have a big impact on your relationship with that broker. Brokers want to partner with drivers and carriers that help them meet their shippers’ needs — and that includes their need for real-time load tracking.
Digital Load Tracking Makes You More Productive
Brokers and 3PLs often prefer digital load tracking over calling you on the phone for location updates because it’s much faster. The good news is that digital freight tracking benefits you, too. When you’re on a load that is being tracked with load tracking technology, you generally receive fewer check calls from brokers. In some cases, you may not receive any check calls at all on the load. Fewer check calls means more time for driving and earning. It also reduces the chance that a broker will call you about a load when you’re on a break or trying to get some sleep.
Read Level Up Your Trucking Business: Reduce the Time You Spend on Negotiating, Booking Loads with Your Favorite Brokers, the previous blog in this series.
To download Trucker Tools’ free driver app, visit https://www.truckertools.com/carriers-toolkit/.
