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

You probably inflated this a bit because I was seeing a lot of plant loads in the 500 miles for 2000 range... But if you caught them desperate maybe.

I don't think the plant loads are worth an extra buck a mile... But I'm the furthest thing from objective a person can be. I'm literally the competition.

 

I am running plant loads regularly but they want you to hustle so you can't get back loads. So your stuck running 50% dead head. Extra dollar per mile does nothing when your overall revenue is $1.50 paid all miles. I get paid % from company.

 

No inflating whatsoever. Only brokers do that

In fact, I just went back and looked at the load. It was $1,457 for 3 drops 197 miles total. You do the math

 

I would not mind seeing also;
Commodity type ("dry groceries", "paletized paper products, "scrap metal", "coca cola", etc.)
Who the shippers and receivers are.

I need this info anyway.
Although, I understand, this may not be a good idea from a broker's perspective to publicize it on a loadboard. But when they email a load offer, why not?

 

Yeah, not going to put that info on the load boards. I know *I* look at posted loads. I don't want to make it easier for someone savvy to figure out who I'm moving for, and snipe my work out from under me. Now, if I'm emailing you with an offer, I'll send over pick-up and delivery locations (not necessarily companies, since we haven't come to an agreement yet), and whatever commodity details I have. That way you've got a pretty reasonable idea of what's going on. Once we have reached an agreement of some sort on rate, etc - then I'll get you the PU/Delivery companies. There are exceptions to this - if for instance, you're one of my regulars for a run I've been doing long term.

 

I got into multiple decent sized accounts off the back of idiots posting commodity details and pickup cities. Enough said.

 

I'm just finishing up my freight agent training so, I'm completely new to the game. But this was something that has been brought up several times during my training. I'm not sure how other brokerages work, but agents in my branch office are always encouraged to, after we solidify that a carrier is willing to take a load, to call the receiver and ask them if an appointment is required, and then we document that information for future reference. 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.

No one likes sitting on the phone wasting time. Not the freight agent, and definitely not the driver or dispatcher. I work on commission and wasting time means losing money. However it's not always the brokerage's fault. 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.

If you want to blame someone for not attaining all of the relevant information and posting it, you should really blame the customer, not the broker. When it comes to my company's load boards, we just input the data that the customer gives us. And unfortunately appointment times apparently aren't required information, so many customers just don't give a #### and leave it out... Call it sheer laziness, but the customers just leave it up to us to figure all of that information out in many cases and then pass it down the line down the carrier. I think it's bad business practice and a total waste of time, but I don't make the rules.

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?

 

Whenever a driver calls about a load, tell them it's not your job to figure out the details and give them the direct number to the customer.

 

What?
From my perspective, an appointment time is a determinant factor of the rate. It is one thing whether to include it in the post info or not, but whether to agree on a rate without knowing it, is another. You brokers are selling it, so by logic, you need to know it and inform about it. It does not seem to be my duty to call your customer and get the details about the load... I mean, I can do it but there is no way a rate can be determined without doing it first. .It would be like a travel agent selling you a vacation package but you need to call the hotel to figure out their room availability.

 

IMO I think you will find that spending some time in advance gathering pickup and delivery information before talking to potential carriers will be time well spent. The more you know ahead of time will reduce the amount of back and forth between you and a carrier. Sure if you have a customer that sends you 50 loads a day with 50 different pickup and delivery locations you probably aren’t going to run down the whole list for no reason. But learn how to mitigate the ambiguity of the situation as fast as you can by telling a carrier what you know and what needs to be found out. If your customer is worth working with then most likely they’ll have a general idea of how things work at shippers/receivers they deal with. A lot of times the type of commodity will give you an idea of how loading and unloading generally will go. If you’re only working on a few loads then most of the time it doesn’t take long to find out what the details are.

Most carriers know that a little back and forth is required to figure out the specifics from time to time, but if you are just going to throw your hands up and tell the carrier “it’s not my job” to know whats going on with the pickup and delivery location, then I believe it will be hard for you to build any credibility with carriers. Most carriers are predisposed with the opinion that brokers aren’t worth the money they make on each transaction, and taking the stance you describe above is not going to help change that. Then again you are probably my competition so if you want to take that stance, go ahead, then those carriers will come find me to book them on a load, j/k, good luck as you move ahead from training.