A couple weeks ago, I received a call from a broker about one of my drivers’ loads. The broker wasn’t looking for a location update – no need for a call to get that, as they’ve got a tracking link and can access that information on-demand.
What the broker was requesting of our office staff – demanding might be the better term here – was that they wanted the load paperwork the very minute the driver made his 8 a.m. scheduled drop.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been pressured by brokers to deliver what, for lack of a better term, you might call “Instant POD,” or Proof of Delivery. In an attempt to maintain a certain quality throughout our organization, we control all information to and from our drivers personally. Aside from the remote-track link, we do not provide our drivers’ information to brokers. In this, we make sure that any documents that come in electronically from our drivers meet our billable quality standard of shape, clarity and legibility. For both reasons we won’t allow our drivers to forward these documents directly to the broker. After delivery, of course, the driver is already busy planning his or her next trip -- navigating, calculating time, reading all instructions and communicating questions back to dispatch.
Further, demands of “instant PODs” directly from the on-site driver to the broker seem to presuppose that every driver is an expert on the capabilities of their mobile device of choice, and operating with a high level of proficiency there. This presupposition is simply false. We sometimes find ourselves explaining particular aspects of using mobile devices in detail, based on each driver’s phone type and software.
In this particular case, on a busy Monday morning with multiple fires to put out in the back office, it occurred to me that this kind of instant service, like detention incurred at a shipper or receiver, is burdensome and shouldn’t be delivered without a price.
I politely informed this broker that, for an additional $50, I would personally stop what I was doing when the driver delivers and handle his request. He declined and I informed him that we would get the POD to him as quickly as reasonably possible.
Trucking is a service business, ultimately, wherein the prime objective is just that, trucking, the safe, on-time pickup and delivery of goods or products. All of this must also be accomplished while navigating the very complex rules and regulations governing our industry.
