If you’re the owner of a freight brokerage or 3PL company, you’re always looking for ways to grow your gross profit margins on loads. For each load that you move, your goal is to reduce the direct expenses associated with that load. As a service-based business that doesn’t manufacture a physical product, increasing operational efficiency is one of the most effective ways to raise your gross load margins. With Trucker Tools’ Smart Capacity software, you can eliminate many of the manual activities associated with load tracking, capacity procurement and carrier rate confirmations. The result? Greater efficiency and higher gross load margins.
1. Recoup Time and FTE with Real-Time Digital Load Tracking
With the real-time load tracking technology of Trucker Tools’ Smart Capacity platform, your track and trace team can monitor the real-time location of shipments from within your TMS. Smart Capacity pings the driver’s smartphone via the Trucker Tools driver app to provide your team with location updates every five to 15 minutes, depending on your needs. Most of the brokers and 3PLs who implement Smart Capacity’s load tracking are able to significantly reduce the number of check calls made to carrier dispatchers and drivers.
When you reduce or eliminate manual check calls with Smart Capacity, each individual load requires less time and human attention, thereby reducing the costs associated with that load. If you reduce the costs associated with a load, that usually translates into an increase of your gross margin on it. The beauty of automating your load tracking process with Smart Capacity is that doing so frees up time for your track and trace team to manage more loads, giving you the opportunity to increase your load count without increasing your headcount.
2. Digital Freight Matching Reduces Cost Per Load
You can use the digital freight matching technology in Smart Capacity to reduce the time and labor associated with covering loads. In contrast to load board technology, Smart Capacity’s digital freight matching uses real-world data to tell you where and when specific types of capacity are available now and will be in the future. Smart Capacity leverages data from the nearly 2 million drivers using our mobile app and 250,000 carriers on our carrier software platform to tell you what’s available for capacity in the market.
Instead of calling carriers by phone, emailing them or using load boards to try to find a truck for a load, your carrier sales team instead can do a quick search of Trucker Tools’ carrier network right from within your TMS. The digital freight matching technology in Smart Capacity matches your loads with available capacity, greatly reducing the time and human resources required to cover loads. Again, reducing the time and human attention required for each load lowers the cost per load and can increase your gross profit margins on the load. Just as is the case with load tracking, using digital freight matching tech in your operations frees up time for your team at its current size to broker more loads.
3. Automate Capacity Procurement with Book It Now®
In 2019, Trucker Tools launched the first load booking automation tool in the industry, Book It Now®. Book It Now® automates the rate confirmation/booking process for freight brokers/3PLs and for carriers and drivers. When you post a load as a Book It Now® load to Smart Capacity, owner operators can book the load at your listed rate through the Trucker Tools driver app and carriers can book the load through our free carrier software platform. If the owner op/carrier wants to propose a lower rate, they can submit a rate quote on the load through the app/carrier platform. When a driver/carrier books one of your Book It Now® loads, the appointment is automatically scheduled in your TMS and the driver/carrier automatically receives an email confirmation.
Book It Now® is a powerful technology because it automates what often can be one of the most time-consuming aspects of covering a load. Instead of spending time on the phone negotiating rates with carriers, you can post specific loads as Book It Now® loads and let Smart Capacity handle it from there. Book It Now® is a scalable technology that greatly reduces the time and human resources associated with sourcing capacity and is a great way to boost your gross profit margins — and to increase your load count without upping your head count.
“With Trucker Tools’ load tracking, digital freight matching and Book It Now®, we won’t have to hire more people to grow,” Surge Transportation’s CEO and Founder Omar Singh noted in a recent interview with Trucker Tools. “We will be able to double freight volume with the team that we have in place now. As we grow if we can keep the same number of employees, that will have a huge impact on the company and our profitability.”
Are you looking for ways to tap into small and medium sized carrier capacity? Be sure to read “Unlock Hidden Capacity with Trucker Tools’ Smart Capacity.” Schedule a free demo of Trucker Tools’ Smart Capacity.
