If you’re like most brokers and logistics providers, you find that delivering continuous freight visibility to your shippers can be difficult. The single feature carrier visibility apps that your shippers may ask you to use are often unpopular with carriers. Some carriers may flat out refuse to use these single feature load tracking apps altogether. The alternative to digital freight tracking apps is to make phone calls to truckers or carrier dispatchers, which is woefully inefficient in terms of time and resources. Check-calls also rely upon the trucker or dispatcher answering the phone.
Why Freight Visibility is a Leading Concern for Shippers
Despite these barriers, increasing visibility on the loads you broker is possible. The first step to doing so is understanding why visibility is such a high priority for your shippers. It’s pretty simple, actually. Having access to detailed load tracking data on their freight allows shippers to better manage their dock schedules and staffing and operate more efficiently. Greater efficiency often translates into higher profit margins. Visibility can help shippers reduce driver dwell time, as well.
Your shippers also want real-time, continuous visibility because it allows them to provide a higher level of service to their customers. When a customer purchases a shipper’s product, the customer is paying for a specific shipping speed and delivery time. If you can provide real-time load tracking data to the shipper, the shipper can give their customer an accurate ETA and inform the customer of any delays as soon as they occur.
Increasing Visibility Compliance Begins with Carriers
Many shippers today are demanding 80 to 90 percent visibility compliance from their broker partners. That means that for every 100 loads that you broker for that shipper, you must be able to track at least 80 to 90 loads. If you’re like many brokers in today’s market, your visibility compliance rate using load tracking technology probably hovers around 30 or 40 percent (and you rely on check-calls to make up the difference).
To up your visibility compliance, you have to incentivize freight tracking for carriers. A great way to do this is to choose and implement load tracking technology that is popular with carriers and that provides them with real benefits. Because let’s face it, most visibility solutions are designed to serve the needs of brokers, shippers and 3PLs — not carriers.
Trucker Tools Mobile App – What You Need To Know
Introducing a carrier-centric visibility solution like Trucker Tools’ free driver app, which includes more than a dozen tools and features in addition to load tracking, can increase your visibility compliance tremendously. Your carrier partners can use the Trucker Tools driver app to find available loads and real-time information on truck stops, fuel prices, optimal routes, weigh scales, truck washes, DOT locations, medical facilities and more. Because Trucker Tools’ load tracking tool is bundled together with so many other features that simplify life on the road for truckers, they’re often more likely to download, use and keep the all-in-one Trucker Tools driver app on their phones over mobile apps that only track freight.
Our broker and 3PL partners who use the Trucker Tools driver app with their carriers are able to bring their visibility compliance percentages into the 80s and 90s. Since introducing the Trucker Tools driver app to its fleet, Iowa-based LTI Delivers has raised its visibility compliance to 86 percent. Georgia-based Syfan Logistics is achieving a visibility compliance rate of 95 percent during peak seasons. You can do the same or better for your brokerage or 3PL.
For more on how Trucker Tools can help you raise your visibility game, read What Are You Doing To Address Your Shipper’s Top Pain Point? Learn more about Trucker Tools’ visibility solutions and the benefits they can provide to your brokerage or 3PL by scheduling a free Trucker Tools demo.
