In a recent webinar titled “Strategic Partnerships: The Key To Rapid Deployment of Complementary Software Capabilities,” Trucker Tools’ VP of Partnerships Matt Silver was joined by Tai Software’s VP of Sales & Marketing Sean McGillicuddy. In the webinar, the two discussed the strategy behind Trucker Tools’ partnership with Tai Software and how the integration can increase operational efficiency for freight broker and logistics businesses like yours. With the partnership’s one-click integration, you can quickly connect drivers using the Trucker Tools driver app with Tai TMS. Another major benefit of the integration discussed during the webinar is the ability to tap into Trucker Tools’ capacity network from within the TMS interface.
Read on to learn more about this powerful integration and how quickly you can start making your business more efficient.
One-Click Load Tracking Integration
During the webinar, McGillicuddy showed attendees how simple it is to enable digital load tracking with the Trucker Tools driver app from within the Tai TMS interface.
“For anybody who’s never used Tai in the past, we have a single page for managing all of your active shipments and most of the actions that you need to perform are handled on that page,” McGillicuddy explained. “Those actions include updating statuses, changing pricing and sending emails related to that shipment. Another feature that falls into that is tracking your shipments. Simply enter the driver’s cell phone number on this screen to start the track and all of those updates from Trucker Tools are going to fall into Tai. Tai’s philosophy on any integration is that we don’t want you to have to leave the application. We don’t want you to have to leave your normal workflow. There’s a lot going on for you as a freight broker and displaying tracking on the same page in your workflow is really, really important.”
“For anybody who’s never used Tai in the past, we have a single page for managing all of your active shipments and most of the actions that you need to perform are handled on that page,” McGillicuddy explained. “Those actions include updating statuses, changing pricing and sending emails related to that shipment. Another feature that falls into that is tracking your shipments. Simply enter the driver’s cell phone number on this screen to start the track and all of those updates from Trucker Tools are going to fall into Tai. Tai’s philosophy on any integration is that we don’t want you to have to leave the application. We don’t want you to have to leave your normal workflow. There’s a lot going on for you as a freight broker and displaying tracking on the same page in your workflow is really, really important.”
You also can use Tai TMS’ texting feature to initiate digital load tracking with individual drivers from the same page. Once the track begins, you’re able to view any PODs or BOLs that the driver uploads during the track on the same page, as well. According to McGillicuddy, many Tai customers have been able to increase freight visibility significantly with Trucker Tools’ load tracking.
Accessing Trucker Tools’ Smart Capacity with Tai TMS
To access Trucker Tools’ capacity network of nearly 2 million drivers and 250,000 carriers, simply open the Truckload Quoting page in Tai TMS. The goal of this page, said McGillicuddy, is to allow you to run a quick query based on historical data. Based on this data, you typically would send out emails to carriers based on the query. The integration with Trucker Tools automates capacity sourcing by automatically finding truck matches for you with confidence that the carrier capacity is available.
“You’re basically leveraging the Trucker Tools network through Tai in order to find the load coverage faster and to give you the ability to book it immediately,” said McGillicuddy. “So we’re taking a process that normally can take a while — including follow-ups with carriers, back and forth with carriers, the email blast, the load board posting and reposting — and we’re taking that and we’re fitting Smart Capacity’s tool for eliminating all of that work and reducing it down into a single page with a few clicks.”
“You’re basically leveraging the Trucker Tools network through Tai in order to find the load coverage faster and to give you the ability to book it immediately,” said McGillicuddy. “So we’re taking a process that normally can take a while — including follow-ups with carriers, back and forth with carriers, the email blast, the load board posting and reposting — and we’re taking that and we’re fitting Smart Capacity’s tool for eliminating all of that work and reducing it down into a single page with a few clicks.”
The Impact of the Tai Software-Trucker Tools Integration
McGillicuddy and Silver also discussed how the integration partnership between Tai Software and Trucker Tools can help users of both software platforms. McGillicuddy shared that Tai TMS users have had huge success tracking loads with Trucker Tools thanks to the usefulness of Trucker Tools’ driver app. Drivers are more likely to download and keep the app on their phones because it helps them in their day to day work.
“I don’t know that anybody else in the industry is really trying as hard as Trucker Tools is to make that app appealing to the driver so that it stays on their phone and it’s not something that falls into that category of ‘Fine, I’ll download it and I’ll delete it,’” said McGillicuddy. “Because of that, we have a higher level of consistency in real-time tracking. The partnership between Tai and Trucker Tools has allowed users of both softwares to get a higher success rate out of real time tracking, which is really important.”
The integration of the capacity component of Trucker Tools’ Smart Capacity platform provides additional time savings for brokers. McGillicuddy sees the integration with Smart Capacity as not only a way to leverage Trucker Tools’ capacity network, but also as a means for reducing the workload of carrier reps.
“We’re reducing the workload of the individual dramatically,” said McGillicuddy. “Essentially, if you quote a shipment in Tai and then want to book it, it will immediately trigger a push-over into Trucker Tools for the Smart Capacity tool, which then automates the capacity component of it. So now your carrier reps are only having to come in and look at shipments where the customer said yes and you’ve automatically got matches on the trucking side, which is a huge win.”
“We’re reducing the workload of the individual dramatically,” said McGillicuddy. “Essentially, if you quote a shipment in Tai and then want to book it, it will immediately trigger a push-over into Trucker Tools for the Smart Capacity tool, which then automates the capacity component of it. So now your carrier reps are only having to come in and look at shipments where the customer said yes and you’ve automatically got matches on the trucking side, which is a huge win.”
