The day to day ramblings of the LTL business.

Had a classic Friday. Private resident, said to call ahead. No problem, I called, no answer. No machine to leave a message either. Verified the numrber with dispatch, and they called too. Same result.
WTH, can't customers follow through when they say to call ahead. I tried once more after ward, but still no answer. SO it got moved to tuesday.

 

Haha. I once had this one peckerhead customer. Bill said 1500 delivery, call 30 min ahead.

Called him @1430 sharp. Told him who I was, what I was bringing, and the address it was going to.

This dude lost his crap on the phone. "Are you f------ kidding me?!?! You are supposed to call when you are 30 minutes out?!? What the freakin crap?!?"

- yes sir, you want your freight at 3 PM, it is now 2:30. I am 2 stops away from your residence... About 30 minutes out

"Then why in the **** are you calling me now?!?!? You are supposed to give me a 30 minute heads up?!?! Does your entire company run like crap or is it just you that doesn't know how to follow simple written directions?!?"

I did NOT make that delivery. I brought it back. Told my dispatcher that the customer was belligerent drunk and verbally abusing me over the phone.

 

If I was an LTL company I really would not prioritize residential shipments. Business to Business is one thing, but the residential, I would consider that all the garbage and throw that to the back of the line and if you get to them great if you can't oh well to bad and as far as the shippers who sell to residences forget those people as well I wouldn't have the sales force wasting time with those kinds of shippers. Probably best to have that garbage thrown on a straight truck run by some third party logistics company and let them worry about it.

 

Yeah. We have an interline carrier (North Park Transport) that we use for the undesirable residentials. Stuff in remote towns that we dont service usually. They have a straight truck that gives them better operational flexibility.

Think it was two weeks ago where I tried to deliver them a giant 3.5k LBS pallet of oversized wood flooring. It was going to a mountain side residential with no forklift. He looked at me and said "this is BS... You guys run this area about as much as us. I'm not accepting this.... Tell your dispatcher that you guys can haul your own garbage."

Haha. Didn't take him long to catch on. But you are right, residential deliveries are mostly garbage anyway. They can easily turn into verbal pissing matches because they don't understand the agreement that they signed with their seller. Curbside delivery only. We won't come inside and set it up, we are not friggin Sears. I sure as crap won't drag it around through your garden either. But yes good sir, you DO get to keep the pallet that your freight is strapped to. Unless you wanna pay to ship it back.

 

My folks just recently bought a brand new patio furniture set. That was shipped in through Ceva Logistics using Courier 1 which is some local straight truck sleeper cab company outfit from Beachwood, Ohio. Anyhow it was a curb side delivery with a lift gate.

Now the only difference is being that I'm in the food service business we have better then average tools for taking large shipments like that. For instance not to many homeowners in my folks neighborhood have a $700 Magliner Gemi II fold down hand truck with all the accessories, but we do so that makes taking deliveries a lot easier most people don't get it, but usually not to many people in my neighborhood are getting big LTL truck shipments.

 

Home depot loves to use us for appliances. Another common one is hot tubs and hot tub covers. I am more than generous by pallet jacking their stuff into a garage so it doesn't get rained on. Driver discretion.

 

If you were GOD, you MIGHT be able to control the sales people. But I doubt it. These folks work on salary plus commission, and will commit to ANYTHING! And if top management is asleep at the switch, or too busy jacking off, they never catch it. Then wonder why they are losing so much money on some freight...

Oh yeah! BTDT. There was a real jerk of an appliance salesman at the Cedar City, UT Home Depot that would promise customers not only inside delivery, but set up as well. Knowing full well that it wasn't going to happen that way. We only did the drop shipments, direct from factory to end customer for them, but we sure got a LOT of them.
And of course in their eyes, WE were the jerks. OBTW this goes back more than ten years when it was going on. I really can't believe that same salesjerk could still be there. But ya never know.