Many shippers now require 80 to 90 percent visibility compliance on their loads, and for good reason. Continuous, real-time visibility helps shippers provide exceptional customer service to their customers and use their resources as efficiently as possible to maximize revenue. Despite the fact that visibility is a top priority for shippers, the trucking industry’s average visibility compliance rate continues to hover around an abysmal 40 percent, leaving approximately 60 percent of freight without visibility.
As shippers (and their customers) ask for more and more transparency on their shipments, the question remains: how can the trucking industry raise the bar for freight visibility? How can you, as a broker, do better at meeting shippers’ visibility needs without reducing your own revenue?
Technology Adoption Drives Greater Visibility
Raising visibility compliance begins with choosing well-designed, easy to implement, results-driven load tracking solutions. With solutions like Trucker Tools’ GPS-based real-time visibility platform, you can increase freight visibility without increasing the number of check calls you make or spending more money on staffing. If you’re still using check calls to track freight, it’s time to consider other options.
Trucker Tools recently hosted a panel discussion on how brokers can survive the current down market and flourish as the market recovers. As Bill Cassidy, senior editor for JOC and one of the panelists on the webinar points out, you have to implement efficiency-focused technology-based solutions if you want to succeed as a broker.
“If you’re not investing in technology-based solutions for your brokerage right now, you’re going to be left behind,” said Cassidy. “And if you’re a broker who’s doing everything by phone right now, you’re probably struggling.”
Improve Shipper Service, Diversify Your Customer Base and Raise Efficiency with Trucker Tools’ Real-Time Visibility Platform
Trucker Tools’ free driver app and real-time visibility platform automate your brokerage’s load tracking with GPS- and API-based technology. Instead of calling carrier dispatchers or truckers five or six times on each load, you can quickly and easily view real-time, actionable visibility information right on your computer screen in seconds. The precision of Trucker Tools’ GPS-based visibility ensures that the location data you’re viewing is accurate and continuous.
When you can access real-time, highly accurate freight location information, you’re better equipped to meet your current shippers’ visibility requirements and attract new shippers.
With Trucker Tools’ real-time visibility platform, you don’t have to wait for a dispatcher to return your telephone call and you’re not left wondering where that truck (and freight) is. The Trucker Tools’ driver app provides real-time location updates every five minutes. If a delay occurs, you can let the shipper know immediately. Trucker Tools’ real-time visibility platform and free driver app can be integrated with shipper visibility systems such as MacroPoint, FourKites, Project44 and 10-4, enabling digital location data sharing with shippers.
Freight visibility tools like Trucker Tools’ real-time visibility platform and free driver app platform also streamline your brokerage operations, decreasing the amount of time that staff members spend on check-calls. With fewer check-calls to make, staff members can concentrate on carrier and shipper development, customer service and other revenue-generating activities.
Provide a Positive Experience for Carriers
Providing a positive experience for carriers is another way that we can collectively raise the bar on freight visibility. When carriers are comfortable and trust a load tracking technology, they are more likely to actively use it — and that increases load visibility for you and your shippers. Trucker Tools recently surveyed carriers about their use of load tracking technology. Of those truckers that responded to our survey, roughly 55 percent said they’re reluctant to use visibility tools because of privacy-related concerns, including the safety personal data on their phones and worries around having their driving patterns recorded.
We firmly believe that in order to successfully raise visibility across the industry, we have to address carriers’ privacy concerns. That’s why the real-time visibility tool included in Trucker Tools’ free driver app is completely transparent for truckers.
Truckers must actively accept a load tracking request in our driver app in order for load tracking to begin. Carriers also have the option to pause or cancel load tracking right from the app. Once they’ve started tracking a load, carriers can easily see who is receiving the load tracking data and the details on the tracked load. Trucker Tools’ driver app tracks the load, not the trucker.
The Trucker Tools driver app also helps carriers run their trucking businesses more profitably and efficiently. Our free driver app includes 17+ tools and features, including a routing & fuel optimizer, Wal-Mart finder, truck stop guide and axle calculator. Carriers also can use Trucker Tools’ free driver app to access real-time info 24 hours/day and seven days/week on available loads, rest areas, parking, repair shops, hospitals, truck washes and more. Instead of juggling six or seven different apps when they’re on a load, carriers can use Trucker Tools’ free, all-in-one driver app on the road.
Trucker Tools’ driver app can function as a single, homogeneous platform that carriers (and you as a broker) can use over and over again. The Trucker Tools driver app is a third-party platform, so that means carriers can use the app’s real-time visibility tool and digital freight/truck matching with multiple brokers — and you can use it with multiple carriers. Carriers don’t have to download a different one-and-done, single function load tracking app with each and every broker load they haul, and that further improves the user experience for carriers.
Discover how real-time load tracking, digital freight matching and automated load booking can help your brokerage. Read our blog How Technology Can Help Brokers Adapt to Current, Future Supply Chain Disruptions. To learn more about Trucker Tools’ real-time visibility platform, contact the Trucker Tools sales team to schedule a free demo.
