"Please call an hour before...."

How the hell do you get anything done if you have to call every customer? I can't imagine any LTL putting up with that crap! You get anywhere from 15 to 30 stops per day, and have to call each one?

 

Well, my job is not LTL in the traditional sense, though it is a local gig. I deliver building materials to construction sites. By the time I get my truck loaded, everything strapped down, all the hardware loaded, paper work confirmed, etc., I can be two hours into 1 load before I leave the yard. All the time invested in getting reading to deliver limits my deliveries to 3-5 per day, in general, during a 8-11 hour day.

 

Not sure how everyone else is. But we are a curbside only carrier. Where their driveway asphalt meets the roadway is where I am supposed to drop their freight. Sometimes out of the goodness of my heart I will move it up the driveway and into their garage. What gets me are those pricks that have this sense of entitlement and want it upstairs, in a specific room, with the packaging taken back. Ummm. No.

 

We are the same way for residential customers. As close to the building as possible, but not in it.
Commercial customers are different, and they make up the bulk of our customer base.

 

Well, will you at least take it off that wood thingy for me, and take the thingy with you?
Uh no ma'am, we can't do that. The pallet and all packaging are a part of your freight.
Well what am I supposed to do with the pallet?
They make nice camp fires...
you

 

OK, that makes much more sense now.

 

I usually deal with industrial accounts and not so much residential and hardly ever call ahead as I'm on the pickup side. However, I learned my lesson on one account that doesn't get many 53' trailers in and out. Showed up and they had to find about 20 people to move cars so I could hit the dock. I now call before I go there. Best part is they have to know Im coming since they called in a pickup!

 

I'll occasionally take the pallet back. I have customers that I get along with and will gladly take them off my hands.

My old coworker would ask the customer "how often do you take a letter out of the envelope and give the envelope back to the mail man?".

 

Now I really like that line! I would steal it from you, if I was still in the business!

 

I do the same thing. I of few regular stops that always appreciate a free pallet. Otherwise, I keep them for one of our regular customers that we stockpile pallets for.