Better Think Twice Before Next Shipment.

If you are a freight forwarder, you most likely have to deal with this concern every week, if not every day. You have a shipment that is scheduled to fly out on a certain date and with that comes an estimate when a shipment is supposed to be ready. Naturally, in order to ensure the freight will be picked up and delivered in the fastest possible timely manner, you tend to book a truck ahead of time, so you are sure you have one secured.

Now, a lot of times, shipments don’t fly out at the planned time or are hugely delayed in transit. This results in the cancellation of the truck we previously secured for that shipment. To us, this is just routine and part of the business. Cancellation does not affect us that much. Other than costing us money, we don’t see it as a big deal, as it wasn’t our fault but the airline’s – a factor we have no control over.

What we don’t see, though, is how it affects the trucker.

Empathy Pays Off

In business, we usually pay attention to the consequences that can affect us. Rarely do we look further and look out for others, as we are preoccupied with our own work. Fair enough. But, what we should keep in mind is that empathy pays off, and can significantly help our company and business.

We had a recent air freight shipment we were working on, and it was supposed to be picked up on a Sunday afternoon. After securing the truck on Friday, we got word on Sunday morning that the shipment hadn’t even taken off from its origin and that it would most likely be ready on Monday, by noon, for pickup. Obviously, we called the carrier and advised them of changes. They didn’t take it well since they already had a plan for the driver after he’d delivered our shipment. In the end, they decided to pick up the next day, for a layover fee. On Monday morning, we discovered the shipment departed later than scheduled and was rescheduled for Monday night. Naturally, the carrier was frustrated again but since they’ve kept their truck booked for us that long, they decided to wait some more. Long story short, after being delayed at customs, the carrier was able to load up on Tuesday early morning. By that point, our partners had lost almost 48 hours of the driver’s time. You might say, “Well, it was their choice. They could cancel the truck in the first place and look for something else.” Fair enough, but what if the carrier wanted to stay on top of their service and not cancel the shipment since they’d committed to it in the first place?

This is more likely to happen when we have a shipment of high importance, such as the first shipment we handle for a particular customer. We all know that these shipments are being watched very closely, as a customer views it as a trial for future business. When it comes to these shipments, it is understandable that we want a carrier secured even if the arrival of the freight is not confirmed by an airline. We would rather pay the cancellation of a trucker out of our pocket, instead of waiting for the confirmation by an airline and then looking for an option. Now, though everyone uses this approach, there is a better method of handling this situation.

Consequences

So, what are the consequences of working this way? Usually, we’re not the one who deals directly with carriers, so it shouldn’t be our concern, right? Well, not really. If we wish to have a greater pool of good carriers available when we need them, we should rethink our strategy. If a carrier gets burned by facing this situation once, it is less likely they will do that run again. If this is a repetitive shipment, caring makes even more sense, right?

Further, if we tend to use the same trucking brokers, this way of doing business affects their relationships with carriers, which reflects on us as well. The carriers they use to haul our customers’ freight.

We had this happen to us a few times, where a reliable carrier that previously faced an issue of this nature for my customer’s freight declined to work on it again. Instead of having a good carrier to offer our customers, we had to pass on a shipment, as the other options were unreliable. They reluctantly took another option, offered by a different trucker, and it resulted in a disaster. The shipment was delivered with a huge delay.

A Different Approach

So, what is a better approach?

If we have developed an honest and straightforward relationship with our truckers, the best solution would be to talk to them and get their opinion about covering the shipment, instead of only insisting they cover it at any cost. We should be sincere with them about the possibility of a shipment not arriving at its scheduled time. I get that we might think, “Well, they might not be able to cover it by the time I have a confirmation.” But, if it is someone we can truly rely on, would you agree they would do their best to find a truck and cover the shipment?

Ultimately, all that impacts our partners in the trucking industry affect our business too, whether directly or indirectly. In the future, we should think twice about having a truck secured at any cost. After all, remember:

“He that can have patience can have what he will.” – Benjamin Franklin