Why should shippers worry about their carriers?

In a balanced market, there is not a single carrier or a single shipper that has absolute control over pricing. Unfortunately, the market is not always balanced and life can get challenging as the market picks up and a freight surplus occurs. Naturally, the carriers have more control in this environment. They can be more selective with the type of freight and shippers they want to work with. If you make business difficult, there is a good chance you could see a rate increase. This whole article is centered around making sure you don’t become THAT shipper. There are a ton of different things you can do to increase load acceptance and improve routing guide compliance. For now, we will focus on one major concept: detention and delays.

Here is a great infographic that helps breakdown how truckload detention and delays effect carriers:

Long detention time and other delays has been proven to adversely affect CMV (commercial motor vehicle) driver fatigue. In 2001, a FMSCA sponsored study (https://trid.trb.org/view/717383) found that drivers with loads that had longer-than-expected load times were associated with more driver fatigue. These delays can cause a whole host of problems for the carrier. Some examples are putting drivers in situations where they drive beyond the legal hours of service (HOS) or misrepresenting driving hours in their logbooks. Considering that 10%-15% of deliveries can expect some form of detention, this can be a fairly big problem for carriers and taking precautions to make sure that you are not the shipper who is known for being slow goes a long way for your business!

How do we actually reduce delays and detention time?

I am glad you asked. Here are a few insights that will help you get on the right path:

• Remove Facility Limitations

  • Limitations at your facility can create a backlog of vehicles that need to be loaded or unloaded. In order to handle these situations, a shipper should always be adequately staffed, have the necessary equipment and should do their best not to over schedule appointments. We operate a warehouse of our own (https://pulselogistics.com/warehousing/), so we understand the importance of applying these principles to our operation.

• Utilize your TMS

  • Most shippers use some form of Transportation Management System (TMS) to preset delivery appointments. This allows them to standardize their process and adds consistency to their operation. For a carrier, this is important because it will lead to more predictable scheduling. Transparency between the shipper and carrier will ALWAYS garner better results.

• Stick to your appointments and do not cater to late carriers

  • Do not miss appointments! If you are in a very busy facility, you may have a goal of scheduling carriers out every 30 minutes and having them unloaded within the next 90 minutes. If you have a carrier that arrives late, ideally, they should be rescheduled and unloaded at a later time. Those who do arrive on time should not be punished by the offenders; this prevents a backlog of trucks.
  Get DATA on your operation. Use those reports!

  • Having more visibility with your TMS will allow you to highlight weak points in your operation. Using the TMS’s reporting functionality can help pinpoint busy times and build strategies around them. You will have a better grasp on when your volume picks up and how to react. Being prepared will prevent a lot of operational mistakes with regards to unloading/loading.

  Build a REAL relationship

  Doing things right by the carrier has more than just transportation cost benefits. It builds trust between you and the carrier, which will have an overall positive impact on your customer. When both parties feel like they are on the same team, good things start to happen and everyone benefits.
  Obviously, there are measures the carrier can take to improve the shipper/carrier relationship but we’ll save that for another day.