Every once in a while, a technology comes along that is truly transformative. That’s how we at Trucker Tools view Book-It-Now, a powerful tool included in our Smart Capacity carrier relationship and capacity management platform. Over the past few years, we’ve been talking with brokers and carriers about Book-It-Now at public forums, trade shows and our customer advisory board meetings. We’ve been working hard to ensure that Book-It-Now delivers on its promise of fully automating the load booking process for both brokers and carriers.
Book-It-Now was officially launched earlier this year and we’re already hearing from brokers and carriers how much they value the automation and efficiency that it brings to their businesses. Together with Trucker Tools’ Smart Capacity carrier relationship and capacity management platform and driver app, Book-It-Now gives small/mid-sized brokers and carriers access to the same powerful automation technologies that the megas use — without the hefty price tag.
Book-It-Now: The Value for Brokers
Book-It-Now holds the bar high if you’re a broker who wants to eliminate inefficiencies and reduce the costs associated with covering a load. Instead of wasting valuable time on repetitive phone calls, texts and emails to truckers and dispatchers to find capacity, you can quickly post the load in Smart Capacity as a Book-It-Now load. When you post a Book-It-Now load in Smart Capacity, you give carriers the ability to book your load quickly and efficiently through the Trucker Tools driver app with a few taps on their smartphone.
Using Book-It-Now and Smart Capacity in your brokerage operations encourages truckers and carrier dispatchers to be more proactive in searching for and booking loads through Trucker Tools’ driver app. That’s good news for you as a broker because when carriers are actively searching for and booking quality loads and reloads through our driver app, that reduces the time that you spend looking for capacity and booking trucks. Book-It-Now and Smart Capacity puts some of the responsibility for freight matching in the hands of carriers, which helps increase your efficiency.
Book-It-Now: The Value for Carriers
If you’re a carrier, Book-It-Now reduces the time that you spend searching for and booking high-quality freight loads and reloads. If you see a Book-It-Now load listed in Trucker Tools’ driver app, you can accept the load for the rate listed or send an alternative rate quote instantaneously through the driver app to the broker. Once you accept a Book-It-Now load in the driver app, the load booking is recorded automatically in the broker’s transportation management system, a confirmation email is sent to you and your dispatcher, and the load is scheduled for pickup. The entire load booking process takes seconds, not minutes or hours.
Book-It-Now puts you in charge of your future by offering you better loads and reloads with greater efficiency. The confirmation email that you receive after you book the load using Book-It-Now offers you suggestions for future available loads-for-tender based on historical data, your proximity to the load you’ve just booked and it’s delivery endpoint. The future available loads included in the confirmation email are ranked in order, based on your load booking history and preferences. Book-It-Now’s future load suggestions allow you to find and secure the next load before you finish your current load, which is a major efficiency win.
How To Implement Book It Now in Your Business
The reality is that real change doesn’t necessarily happen all at once, especially when it involves technology. The same goes for implementing automation tools in your brokerage or trucking business. Instead of jumping head-first into automation and expecting to automate all of your load booking at once, we recommend using Book-It-Now with some of your loads to start.
Over time, you’ll likely see how Book-It-Now has a positive impact on your efficiency and the operational costs associated with each load will be reduced. As a broker, you’ll see that the variable cost on your Book-It-Now loads is zero. If you’re a carrier, you’ll be better positioned for future reloads with every Book-It-Now load you accept through Trucker Tools’ driver app.
One of the things we love about Book-It-Now is that it lets carriers and brokers help themselves and each other in the process. That’s why we see Book-It-Now as a game-changer for the transportation industry: it creates an alignment between carriers and brokers instead of a divide. And we see that as a winning, impactful proposition that can create a ripple effect across other parts of the supply chain.
For instructions on how carriers can use Book-It-Now on the Trucker Tools driver app, check out our blog post “Trucker Tools Driver App Tips: Book-It-Now”. For carriers to start using Book-It-Now, download the Trucker Tools free driver app. For brokers to start using Book-It-Now, schedule a free demo of the Trucker Tools Smart Capacity platform.
