I have never understood why someone would take the chance with freight moving as LTL if it is time sensitive; the increased amount of potential issues as LTL instead of moving as TL are much higher (customs, other deliveries, insurance thresholds of the carrier etc). If something is so valuable to a client to be on site for a certain time then a truck load rate is pretty cheap insurance, I agree with Low Miler here. If we are expected to be somewhere without fail you are buying my truck; and the service should be sold this way. We are always worried about getting the cheapest rates it seems yet we have proof here on inside transport that usually if rates seem too good to be true they probably are, and there a lot of carriers that will tell you what you want to hear just to get the freight, and then mess it all up from there. How do brokers NOT have solid relationships with carriers they can trust to get something done on certain lanes. Brokers call us all the time when they NEED something done; we tell them IF we can do it; what we need to do it, and when we need to know by to make sure it gets done. (We probably say NO to more freight than we take in these situations simply because of capacity, not worth it to lie to someone for a good rate only to fail at the service) and because of that there is a trust we have with our brokers/customers). Relationships go along way with carriers; and if you think they don't then you are working with crappy carriers IMO. There are too many brokers out there right now that pick service based on lowest price which will get you in trouble with your customer at least half the time, you get what you pay for in this business and to tie back to this thread if you are moving expedite or guaranteed service then the term LTL should not be included in the discussion...
