Brokers: what technology (or lack thereof) frustrates you the most?

not to interrupt your thread. but maybe you need to get with the times. and leave the antiquated technology behind.

have laptop, printer/scanner, cell phone with internet hotspot, and there are tons of internet faxing programs. WITHOUT the use of the ancient landline system. as long as you have cell phone signal, you have internet and send/receive faxes from your truck. anywhere in the country.

but if you too cheap to subscribe to one of them cheap internet faxing services. email always works too.

save yourself the hassle, and the money you spend. $8.99 per month will get you 700 pages per month.

 

You get a confirmation on the machine or through a printed receipt that the fax went through -- that is the benefit of faxing. Its like Postal service delivery confirmation -- you only get the "successful transmission" message if your fax machine talked to a receiving fax machine and both machines confirmed the same number of pages. If you got a "successful transmission" message and the other party claims it didn't go through -- well, lets just say that's as reliable as "the check's in the mail."

Email doesn't offer a similar receipt unless both you and the receiver happen to use the same email service.

 

Use an internet fax service. I signed up for one but don't use it anymore. Email is just easier and I've never had a problem.

 

This is a source of frustration all by itself. Slow hot sopts. Unable to connect to hot spots. No cell phone signal, or my personal favorite...the 5 bars signal that magically drops to 1.

 

email does offer this. It's called a read reciept, check with your provider. I have a google for business account which offers this, very handy.

 

As a trucker: I've found some technology that helps. Smartphone app called Turboscan. Take picture with that app, turn pic into JPEG or PDF file to directly email. No longer need a scanner

 

Bidding programs. Most shippers have their own software and ways of handling the bidding / tiered systems. Getting a call from a good driver asking for a load and then having to wait 2 hours to get your bid approved only to find out that the truck is no longer available is a struggle I know alot of brokers deal with regularly. In a perfect world, as you say, I would get every load I want for tons of money and both myself and my drivers will be very happy. Too bad reality is nothing close to this and both parties are often unhappy with what they're making on a load.