Why do brokers not post appointment times, wasting our time?

Yes, but this is the info that is needed in order to decide whether I can take this load or not at all. If I find out that I am going to Kraft Foods in Granite City, IL. I deem the whole negotiation nullified. This info should have been given in the first place. It might be unprofessional in some way....but I will not go there, I am sorry. Well... I could go there but nobody would pay me what I would want for that.

 

My congratulation man! You are mature broker right from beginning.
And I'm definitely not going to sit on hold or get bounced around on the phone with a receiver for ten, fifteen minutes, or half an hour to determine if there is an appointment required on a load that I might not even sell. It's a waste of my time, and agents in my office will only do it if the carrier is committed to taking the load and making a sale.
Of course your time is most valuable.
Fot MF driver If you want the load then you should be willing to sit on hold for a few minutes, or give us a chance to call you back without being a sneaky rascal and going around looking for a load elsewhere.
I want to know why it's supposed to be MY job to figure out if there's an appointment required, or not? I'm still trying to figure that out. --- Why is it MY job again?
Because you are the broker aka middleman between carrier and shipper/receiver. Isn't it in any broker contract words to stay away ? If carriers have to call for appointments why we need you?
WHAT IS YOUR JOB?

 

The driver that couldn't wait a few minutes to get called back must have found a broker whose job was to know the details of their loads.

 

When they tell me, that they will call me right back. I take the "right back" to be 15 minutes, if the broker is anonymous. If it is a familiar, and well remembered broker, the courtesy credit is much longer, maybe 30 minutes but even before abandoning him or her, I still call them and ask, if we have a deal or not. But 7 times out of 10, if they don't call me really "right back" (5 minutes), it means that they would not agree to the terms, and my waiting in suspense was in vain.

 

Ladies and gentlemen my competition!

I really do love this business. Customers tell you whether you need to schedule appointments or not. If the load is going today someone probably already scheduled it. If the load is going on a future day it's completely OK to tell the carrier it's a scheduled drop and ask them when they want to drop it. Then call the receiver and get as close to the time as possible.

It's actually a really bad idea to schedule appointments before booking a truck. Much like poker you want to put off making every decision until the last moment you can without suffering any consequences. This is because the more time passes the more information you get. This is for everyone's benefit too and is just good business.

 

It would behoove me as a old company driver to understand that when my dispatch finally gets the go on whatever load that you all arranged, I will understand if the HOS will make me late or not. If so.. then the appt time, and all of that is out the window if the carrier cannot find a team to get it right through for you all.

If it is one thing that is branded into my bones with trucking it will be no one asked me if I can do this appt or that appt. They will only tell me to be there at a certain hour on a certain date or else.

Sometimes the or else has caused yelling that has not stopped for years like a bad marriage.

Not too long ago I was busy working a CH Robinson load as a team that was rather hot on I-5 down the coast. It's a rather long haul and a good one. It needs a team do it. No problem.

However. CH robinson wants to call my cell in my pocket direct meaning I have to find a spot, stop the truck and answer. Every 20 minutes or less. I finally hung up on them taking the battery out for the day cursing the technology that allowed people to bother me about being on time if the wheels have to lawfully STOP 10 minutes to answer are we there yet?

Never mind the precious satellite and 4 Office Buildings worth of people in the western FFE dispatch system from Memphis to CA tracking the load in real time with a army of staff and their telephones....

 

Two things. First, the city has no bearing on if you scale or not. 2nd, if the load is worth pulling a twenty dollar toll is so little it doesn't matter.
Third. It's only a few miles oor to avoid that toll. I only cross it when I'm very short on time, or bobtail.

 

He was just choosing to be pedantic with my explanation on the why of the geographic spread. It is what it is.

 

As ever, I had to bite back on several half-written replies. Sometimes, it's not in my best interests to be as helpful as I tend to want to be. Tricky to remember that.

If he can't figure out why it's his job, he's in for a baaaaaad time.

 

If a customer has enough time to determine a date of delivery, then they have an extra thirty seconds to ask the receiver whether or not the receiver requires an appointment, or not, while they're already on the phone setting up the shipment. It's an easy question that, if not asked, winds up wasting a lot of my time and my carrier's time. Laziness. That's the bottom line. It becomes my job because some shipping clerk who is probably paid hourly is too lazy to ask a question and then forward that information before a load gets posted. In some cases the customer files the load, without this information, and then the broker posts it to a board. If the customer had provided the information, it would be there. This whole scenario boils down to the burden of responsibility: "If I don't do X, someone else will do it for me." I'll gladly do their job for them, after ....

If we agree on the money then I'd think it would be worth waiting a few minutes? I'm not making the call to the receiver to find out if there's an appointment required unless the money has already been agreed on. And I'm not wasting time on carriers that are just shopping around. If we can't agree on the money beforehand then I'm not calling to ask about appointments. If a carrier agrees on the money and to take a load and then blows me off after I make the call, they shouldn't expect any further business with me in the future.