For the brokers out there, not all, but some

M

MyTrucksMyRates

Member
Dec 23, 2009
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Pickering, Ontario
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Please, when asking for quotes on LTL and agreeing on a rate, don't send confirmations with a 8:00pm pick up time AND a 5:00am appointment time and expect me to keep the same rate we negotiated for an LTL.

If you have an LTL with an appointment time, tell us that part when you ask for the rate. Sending it on the confirmation after the fact is not only a low blow to the carrier, it also shows you negotiate in bad faith.
 
A standard line that I use is... "the rate is based on the information and characteristics provided by the party seeking the rate and is subject to change if the shipment characteristics do"

If buddy asks for a rate for three skid to Cleveland and you go to pick them up and sure, it's three skids but they're 10' long surely they can't expect you to honor the rate given.

I mean... I get the fact that everyone has to start somewhere. And I get that we were all the new guy or girl at some point. But jeeze the brokerage & carrier owners really need to step up how their people are trained for what they do.

I feel bad for some of the newbies (not all but some)... in a lot of cases their just sat down at a desk and left to fend for themselves with little or no training.

Bottom line... if you can't be bothered to train those that work under you... what does that say about you and your company.

It's not just Brokers My Trucks... I've given guys freight with specific delivery instructions... negotiated a fair price for what I was asking (and the guy seemed to know what he was talking about). Followed up on the load... yes sir, yes sir three bags full... with every call. Only to discover on delivery day the truck is still 400 miles out. I ask what happened and the answer I get is... Well, I'm kind of new to the highway dispatch thing... I guess I did realize that Spokane was that far away.

Accurate info = Accurate Price
The freight Changes = The Price is subject to change too.
 
And don't agree to a rate and then give us the "hey it's only LTL" line.
TOUCHE ! sorry man, I couldn't resist

We usually ask dispatcher to find out ETA @ pu and then report to shipper, by the time the order get's to dispatcher, we will put on a note such as: "we told shipper you exopect to be there at ___"

I usually specify delivery "by noon" or whatever expectations client has. You have to remember if a client gets a delivery at 4pm it may not be any use to him either but we try to give trucker time to get through his stops. Certainly if I wanted 8am delivery that would/should have been discussed and you're right, details should be agreed to when booking load
 
Does anyone else here hate "APPOINTMENT FREIGHT" as much as I do?

It should be noted that my company brokers a fair amount of it. But I am continually getting into arguments with shippers and consignee's trying to stick handle a carrier into an appointment 90 minutes after their scheduled time. How can one book a 60 minute window for an appointment 2000 miles away.

This appointment BS is getting out of hand?

So what's the solution? Send the truck early and possibly have him/her sit a day generating no revenue?

Send the truck on time and hope there are no customs delays, traffic delays, mechanical delays... and if you do show up a little late... have to sit until the next day to get empty generating no revenue?

I've been in trucking for 20 years... I'm not sure when this whole appointment thing got so huge... but I don't like it.
 
Best solution of all is to not deal with appointment LTL at all. Receivers who need a delivery appointment to pull two skids off are silly anyway...it takes five minutes to pull skidded LTL off a truck...no reason that these receivers couldn''t just go first come first serve within an agreed to time frame..appointments for LTL are just plain silly...it could be handled so much better. Truckload appointments I can understand..often it does take a couple of hours to unload a whole truck..and you don't necessarily want them just showing up..but LTL..come on..
 
Nawk said:
Does anyone else here hate "APPOINTMENT FREIGHT" as much as I do?

It should be noted that my company brokers a fair amount of it. But I am continually getting into arguments with shippers and consignee's trying to stick handle a carrier into an appointment 90 minutes after their scheduled time. How can one book a 60 minute window for an appointment 2000 miles away.

This appointment BS is getting out of hand?

So what's the solution? Send the truck early and possibly have him/her sit a day generating no revenue?

Send the truck on time and hope there are no customs delays, traffic delays, mechanical delays... and if you do show up a little late... have to sit until the next day to get empty generating no revenue?

I've been in trucking for 20 years... I'm not sure when this whole appointment thing got so huge... but I don't like it.
Click to expand...

I totally agree with you there Nawk. Appointments for LTL are crazy. What drives me crazy is that when the truck shows up on time for a appointment, and still has to wait in line, and end being there 3-4 hours.
 
Freight Broker said:
Best solution of all is to not deal with appointment LTL at all. Receivers who need a delivery appointment to pull two skids off are silly anyway...it takes five minutes to pull skidded LTL off a truck...no reason that these receivers couldn''t just go first come first serve within an agreed to time frame..appointments for LTL are just plain silly...it could be handled so much better. Truckload appointments I can understand..often it does take a couple of hours to unload a whole truck..and you don't necessarily want them just showing up..but LTL..come on..
Click to expand...

In a perfect world.

The cold hard reality however is... Can you afford to turn away freight. I know I cant. especially these days with the economy and things so competitive. I'd love to be able to say "Sorry... did you say appointment... Oh, we don't do appointments."

The fact is... if I turn away the freight... there are a dozen or more other brokers / carriers that will do it.

It's frustrating...
 
It's not the appoinment times I have a problem with, my biggest client is nothing but LTL appoinments, sealed trucks, expedites, team etc... but I know that in advance and I can plan around it.

It's when I call a broker for 5 skids from Point A to Point B, give them my rate based on the information they gave me, then get the confirmation(s) and they are nowhere close to what we had just talked about on the phone.

And Nawk, I can't tell you how many times I have run into the old "well I told you they were 8 skids, you should know that takes up 8 spots", and I reply "yes, but they are one skid at 32 feet" there is a HUGE difference".

One more while I'm at it...

Recently I was asked to pick up 30 stackable skids, ok, my brain starts doing the calculations... 30 skids stackable = 15 spots... no problem... until I get to the pick up and the skids are 84" high!
 
I couldn't agree more with everyone ! We had to have someone put in place FULL-TIME to schedule delivery appointments, because every other shipment these days is appointment LTL. We used to be able to charge a little extra, now we get offers of $200 for a skid that needs a delivery appointment, and the receiver only schedules on-line, and it can take up to 72 hours or longer to secure your appt. Oh, and they only have a 4am or 10am time available, and if you're late (too many reasons to list of WHY a carrier could be late) you're subject to a $100 fine. So really we're now helping to pay for the skid that we're contracted to deliver...It's almost funny..till you realize that this is the state of trucking today...ridiculous.
 
Freight rates

I agree, there are lots of people pushing the enveloppe.
I have one client ,a good freight broker that I have been dealing with for over two years with the same shipment every week.
Always ready late thursday, or early friday, destined to deliver monday morning 1200miles away.
We have managed this for a long time, in the recent months the freight was now ready only at noon friday , then as late as 3:00pm and this location is 1 hour soth of a major urban area.
We always have freight further north of this location on the way home.
Early this year , several times we had routed our trucks to pick up the northern locations first and head back down south to satisfy our client , may I add at no extra cost. Running as far as 150 miles out of route to grab 4 -5 skids.

We were not able to pick up this freight twice since the new year and our competition carried it out and both shipments resulted in claims due to the fragile goods being handled too much.

Just this week the client has agreed to get the freight ready earlier ( about time), allthough the clincher was that our freight brokers client wanted delivery on monday morning before 10:00am.

We simply refused to do this. The freight broker tried to get us to cave in , but we were steadfast. Actually we were a little insulted seeing we had serviced this client beyond what is expected, now they were asking for too much.
In the end I suggested to the broker that I would guarantee 8:00am delivery for a surcharge of $200.00 or no extra cost by 2:00pm latest. We put the ball in the clients court.
The answer was that we got the freight anyway, without the appointment surcharge.
The freight broker still has his client and we still have the freight, together we stood up to the end user.

As for industry knowledge it is definitly lacking, we had several brokers try to sell us some freight that we ususally carry for another regulare freight broker client of ours.
These newbie's were trying to sell eight skid spots, what they omitted to tell was that each skid weighs in at 3800lbs. We all know 30,000lbs does not equal 1/3 of a tariler in the USA!!!
 
When I was doin LTL in the states as a driver I would make my own appts. Sometimes it worked out ok because the first question I would ask is which dock is for your LTL freight and most had docks only for LTL even the grocery stores. 1 month ago I had 2 drops in Chicago and 1 in Milwaukee and I broke down in Battlecreek Mi. at 3am. 7 hrs. later started rolling. Called first cust., told what happend and would be 3 hrs. late. He said ok it's only 90 boxes, next cust. was only 3 blocks away. Dispatch said they called and said no way, wait till morn. I went to cust. anyway, talked nice and ok, back in 900 cases off by 5:00. In Milwaukee for 8am, 400 cases off. My back haul appt. moved to 4pm cause of breakdown in Mi. So I got # from dispatch and called and talked nice, new appt. at 10:30am. Loaded by 11:30. Maybe some people are not nice or persistant on the phone when making appts. because they are not the one's waiting til' morning in bumfu*k Idaho. Maybe let the driver set up some appts.
 
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jreid said:
When I was doin LTL in the states as a driver I would make my own appts. Sometimes it worked out ok because the first question I would ask is which dock is for your LTL freight and most had docks only for LTL even the grocery stores. 1 month ago I had 2 drops in Chicago and 1 in Milwaukee and I broke down in Battlecreek Mi. at 3am. 7 hrs. later started rolling. Called first cust., told what happend and would be 3 hrs. late. He said ok it's only 90 boxes, next cust. was only 3 blocks away. Dispatch said they called and said no way, wait till morn. I went to cust. anyway, talked nice and ok, back in 900 cases off by 5:00. In Milwaukee for 8am, 400 cases off. My back haul appt. moved to 4pm cause of breakdown in Mi. So I got # from dispatch and called and talked nice, new appt. at 10:30am. Loaded by 11:30. Maybe some people are not nice or persistant on the phone when making appts. because they are not the one's waiting til' morning in bumfu*k Idaho. Maybe let the driver set up some appts.
Click to expand...

As an ex owner-op now dispatcher, I couldn't agree with you more, but for different reasons. The driver is the only one that can give a proper ETA when it comes to appts. It's his book that dictates when he can be in a certain area, as a dispatcher, we can only guesstimate when that can be. In 15 yrs as a driver, I can count on one hand how many appts. my dispatch had gone and made for me. Another problem nowadays is that our drivers are plain old lazy and don't want to have to deal with making there own appts, heck they don't even like calling for directions so they go and get GPS units.
 
mrspeed19692006 said:
The driver is the only one that can give a proper ETA when it comes to appts. It's his book that dictates when he can be in a certain area, as a dispatcher, we can only guesstimate when that can be.
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I disagree. As a dispatcher YOU should know where a driver can be at any given point, and at what time he should be there, barring any unforeseen circumstances. That's why you are called a dispatcher. You are ultimately responsible for the drivers getting to where they need to go, when they need to go there.

mrspeed19692006 said:
In 15 yrs as a driver, I can count on one hand how many appts. my dispatch had gone and made for me.
Click to expand...

Then either you were counted on far too much as a driver to do non driver responsibilities, or you didn't have a whole lot of appointments in those 15 years. I have been in this business for 20+ years, and I can tell you that not one single appointment has ever been booked by any one of my drivers, ever.

mrspeed19692006 said:
Another problem nowadays is that our drivers are plain old lazy and don't want to have to deal with making there own appts, heck they don't even like calling for directions so they go and get GPS units.
Click to expand...

This I do agree with you. Except that I don't see it as a bad thing that they go out and buy their own GPS units. As for being lazy, the drivers have enough to deal with, booking appointments and talking to clients should never fall on their shoulders.
 
Hey whoa, don't get me wrong, I know where my trucks are, but seeing as 95% of what we do involves crane off loading, I'd rather have an exact time from the driver, rather than me sitting here guesstimating when the truck will be there and telling the customer when I think he will be there. Hell I don't know if he's already been on the go for 15-20hrs during his off duty time before loading. Sure I can easily sit here and say hey you just had 36hrs off so you should be able to get loaded now (example: 3pm) and be in Baltimore in the morning. If I were to operate that way, there would be alot of service failures. I've even taken the issue up with my drivers here, and they are much more happy and productive, just for the simple fact that it takes a little stress off of them. As for GPS units, SWOOSH, right out the freakin window!!! A customer can 99% of the time give you the best "trouble free" routing into their location, just don't get the directions from the secretary, LOL, Maybe there's just to many prima donnas running around now.
 
I wish my trucks dispatched themselves. Frig, I'm working for the wrong company!

I hear both sides, but it all comes down to responsibility. This industry is working on such a tight margin that no one will step up and say "Hey, I screwed up" cause we can't afford it like we could back in the good 'ol days (2007!) Giving a customer/carrier/broker a 'discount' or rebate or whatever due to a missed appointment or an lengthy stay at a dock basically makes SOMEONE lose out on some coin... Although SOMEONE should pay, I still believe that you can't keep picking from the apple tree for too long before there's no more fruit to pick. Keep in mind though that pear tree over there looks good...
 
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