Total Quality Logistics (TQL)

@boredsocial The company I work for right now we do a lot of flatbed TQL work. We are given a lot of bad info on loads, destinations, etc. My boss has also told them not to contact me and to go through him. But because they needed to text me with a pickup location ONE time I get phone calls all the time. I usually end up blocking the number in my phone after I listen to the message. My boss even called them and complained but it still happens every day.

The only thing stopping me from losing my #### and telling the guy off is I plan on buying a truck in the next few months and don't want to burn any bridges. Not that I want to be running cheap TQL freight but in the northeast there's not always loads getting out of here.

 

That's probably the customers more than it is TQL... unless you're only using one TQL broker. TQL believes in making rigorous check calls and they have a company policy of always trying to reach the driver. This is because they do not trust dispatchers. At all. I could tell you at this point that they have no reason to be this way but that would be a hilarious lie. They might stop doing it after your boss called in to complain, but honestly they don't give a #### if you guys don't like how they do business. They see the dispatcher as an obstacle to them knowing what is going on with the load.

 

Yeah like I said, I just block their numbers. I don't have a "dispatcher". It's just my boss and I, so anything they need they can get from him until I have my own truck. And they haven't even slowed down with the calls since my boss told them not call me any more. I get at least 4 blocked call notices a day on my phone.

 

Yup. Honestly I feel pretty sour about TQL kind of. Even though I'm professionally kind of their grandchild (got started at a brokerage started by a ex TQL guy) I don't really appreciate their business model. I think it's done a lot to degrade the public perception of brokers. Because it's not just TQL it's the army of mini clone TQL's that have popped up over the last decade. Most of them are just like TQL but significantly grimier.

I mean their model is just 'Hey we can hire just out of college kids from low wage areas for like 30k a year. They sound smart. Let's throw a thousand of them a year at the wall and see how many stick! Then we'll slap golden handcuffs on the ones who DO stick and pay them half of what successful brokers do elsewhere!'

I feel about them the way O/O's feel about CR England basically.

There are tons of little things they do in the spot market that bug me... But I can't really talk about them without giving away a LOT of information. Suffice it to say that of all my opponents they are the most predictable and the most prone to cheesy strategies.

 

I feel for you as a broker. I almost went to work one to get my experience so I could go out on my own eventually. But I just couldn't live off of what I would make as a sub. I've worked with a few really good brokers over the years as a company driver and some that I would just block their numbers.

What area's do you work and what type of freight?

 

Midwest, Southeast, Texas. Mostly produce. I do a little bit of random flatbed stuff out of PA but it's sporadic as heck.

 

You ever get stuff coming out of those area's going to the PA area for flatbeds?

 

Nope. The PA customer ships all over the place too. No consistency at all.

 

This is what is holding me back from buying a truck. I love flatbed work, but I don't want to be out for weeks at a time chasing money.

 

That's all spot market freight unfortunately. The reason it's on the spot market is that it was unexpected or it's contract transportation went wrong. Nobody pays 1.90+ a mile when they can get a mega to drop and hook it for 1.25 a mile. They can't get cheap capacity because they couldn't plan it in advance and they probably want live load and unload... Something the big carriers are (quite rightly) allergic to. The mega's start cheap with easy freight but they rapidly become VERY expensive when you want them to do anything besides pick it up at point A and some day deliver it to point B.