Who are the best dispatch services to use for and Owner Operator?

Wouldn’t you have to give up your insurance then? How hard is it and how much would it cost to get it all back going again? You have your own authority and insurance right?

 

Every once in a while i get frustrated (we all have those weeks) and i consider reactivating my authority. It's basically just getting insurance and sending out some forms to reactivate the dot#, ifta, kyu#, etc.

 

It's still going to be a while until I get going but I've been looking at dispatch Services also. I think it depends on how much value they bring for what it is that you are paying, contract issues aside.

If the dispatch company has been around for a while and they have good relationships with brokers, they may be able to get you a better rate then you could get.

Here's my thinking. If you are a newer company and you don't have a lot of contacts with brokers, if the market isn't great and a lot of people are calling on the same load, you're just another phone caller making call after call after call. But if there is a dispatch service that has been around for a while that has good relationships with brokers the broker may contact them first and may have better paying loads available for them without you spending such an exorbitant amount of time on the phone.

The downside is that if you are not making those calls yourself and forging those relationships you're not going to get to where the Brokers are calling you yourself first.

However, if they bring the right value and make your life easier I suppose that could be worth it. But they absolutely have to provide the right value.

On the homepage of the trucker's report there are a few dispatch services that are listed. I wonder if they are paid advertisers or if they are well recommended by the trucker's report itself?

 

The little bit that I know about it I think that the dispatch companies offer different services. So some people may just want to be dispatched where other people may need more of the back office things done and the percentage changes accordingly. But I do think normally they do the billing and MC packets and all that

I also think that a lot of them want you to factor their loads through a company associated with them and then they will get paid right away. I don't know how that actually works because I don't think it directly goes through them. And the only other thing that I can think is that even if you have not gotten paid they are going to want to be paid weekly.

If that's not correct I'm sure somebody can set me straight.

 

Makes sense. I am curious though if you cancelled your insurance mid year, then a year later wanted to go independent again, would that be a bad mark on your record or no big deal?

 

Sometimes I’ve wondered if I have extra dispatcher/load planner capacity then maybe that capacity would be well spent having a dispatch service. I could just see it all becoming a big headache though with setting up multiple mc’s with brokerages, managing all the billing, and then handling the factoring as well and out laying all that money so the truck can be paid right away.

I’d think someone would need 10% for the dispatch and setup tasks. Then 3% for the billing and factoring duties. If in a terrible market like now say you grossed minimum of 5k per week that would be $650 per week to the dispatch, billing, and factor. You would need at least a couple clients just to break even on it and that’s before figuring carrying all that money for 45 days. To the truck owner it would be sweet just focusing on driving but $650 per week is a lot added up over time. Say things got good and you grossed $7000 that’s $910 a week.

I guess just depends what ones priorities are and if it would be worth it. That’s a lot of money to spend but if it’s the difference between owning your own gig and not being able to handle it and not owning then prob worth it.

Back to thinking of my own extra capacity I’m probably better off just hiring more owner ops and things being a lot less confusing.

Interesting to think about all the possibilities!

 

I would think the biggest negative would be paying more for insurance when you reactivate. Insurance companies would probably price you as a new entrant.