What Do You Look For From Your Dispatcher

This is very true I cant say enough about Communication, If I dont answer my driver's qual com message I will def hear about it. so I always always answer all my drivers messages and encourage all my drivers to call anytime or send a message anytime, often i over hear things like " dont call me i'm busy" or as soon as the phone rings the first thing i hear someone saying is "please hold" one thing drivers hate is holding forever on a phone or not getting their messages answered.

 

My favorite dispatcher was actually my first one with Werner. I still remember his name: Mark Fjeld. The first day I talked to him and I said, "that last name is...Norweigan?" and he said "Very good!" I think I scored bonus points on that one.

He kept me pretty busy and along with regular loads, he also would volunteer me for any temporary openings on dedicated accounts. Any time an opportunity would come up I guess he'd put my name in. They'd call to ask me if I wanted to help out on a specific dedicated account for a little bit and I'd never turn it down.

And I swear one time they purposefully routed me through some back roads in Wisconsin that went through like 5 small Scandinavian towns because he wanted me to pick him up something from the Motherland. haha.

 

Lets Face it everywhere you go there is going to be good Driver Managers and bad ones. I work for a large company that has around 60 or so Driver Managers just on the Day shift, and every Driver Manager is going to Deal with their board and drivers in a different way. i must admit it is amazing at some of the things i overhear, at any point or time in a given day we as Driver Managers at faced with very stressful situations, like Drivers in accidents or a Driver having a Medical problem out on the road and they are alone or drivers being detained at the canadian border and load is in jeopardy or Owner ops Refusing loads and screaming at you
etc etc etc I could go on and on But my point here is how we as Driver Managers handle all these situations. We have to be prepared to handle anything. we cannot let a stressful situation get the best of us, I see this alot. If a Driver is not treated with respect no matter how he acts towards you then you as a Driver Manager will have a very hard time Dealing with your Drivers in the future. I get cussed out screamed at, yelled at called names, its not good to yell and scream back at your driver, its just not a good thing at all.
if you have 60 to 70 drivers on your board your just not going to make every driver happy. over time you do develop friendships with drivers and that is a good thing.

 

answer your phone.If Ive been out 3 weeks I want to go home.Telling a driver there is no freight in your area,can make you look kind of bad .when the driver lives in dayton ohio

 

I am the wife of a truck driver and I have been dispatching for him for about 8 months. I would like to try dispatching for other Owner Operators that have their own authority. My husband talks to all kinds of drivers out there and he tells me that there are a lot of guys out there trying to run their business out of their truck and that the biggest complaint about that is the amount of time they spend getting things set up. This is time they could be spend rolling down the road. I am not looking to make a killing off of this but obviously can’t do it for free. I would like to hear some input for the guy’s that are out there. Please be nice! I know some of you will say that I would just be another hand in the drivers pocket but if I can make the difference of the driver being able to do more running by saving him a bunch of down time, wouldn’t that actually be helping the driver be more profitable?

 

What you are talking about is being a broker. That is not easy to do, and it is expensive to set up to do it right. If you are working with O/O's it is not dispatching. There is a difference between dispatching and being a broker.

 

No I am not talking about being a broker. Trust me, I sent a couple of grand for broker school. I would be what is called Bona Fide Carrier Agent ( A person or persons who are part of the "normal" organization of the motor carrier and performs duties under the carrier directions pursuant to a preexisting aggreement which provides for a continuing relationship,percluding the exercise of discretion on the part of the agent in allocating traffic between the carrier and others)

I do realize that there is a fine line here but I would be merely gathering information for Operator, faxing or e-mailing paper work and so forth. The things the O/O can't do going down the road. I would in no way represent myself as a broker.
I would be more like a secretary or an answering service for the Owner Operator than any kind of broker. Maybe more like a freight finder.

The money get's paid from the broker or shipper to the Owner Operator directly.