After I landed my first customer in logistics, I was hit with 2 phrases by her that have stuck with me ever since.
“You’re only as good as your last truck.”
“You overpromised and underdelivered.”
These aren’t uncommon phrases in logistics but the situation surrounding these phrases at the time made them echo throughout my career.
This was not only the first customer but also the very first shipment. And it ended up being a shipment from hell. I had the driver no call, no show at delivery, just to figure out that he ended up hospitalized due to illness the night before and nobody knew where the truck itself was.
To make matters worse, this all happened in the middle of nowhere and he was hauling hazardous material, so it was instantly an uphill battle.
I won’t go into a complete breakdown of events but it did eventually get delivered, I got a verbal beatdown from my customer and I never worked with that company again.
Why these two phrases stuck with me, and why they are significant, is invaluable.
First off, we all know that you are NOT only as good as your last truck.
When it comes down to it, we are talking about 80,000 pound, 18-wheeled, massive trucks driving thousands of miles every week with drivers doing an insane amount of stationary sitting. It is inevitable that you are going to run into issues with trucks and health problems with drivers.
You have to keep in mind though that in your customers eyes, especially first time customers, you are being judged by the performance of the current trucks on the road.
To make matters worse, if you know anything about logistics, you know that truck issues only happen in groups. When you are a successful broker, you typically have barely any issues or you have an issue on just about every other shipment that particular week.
But that is where the 2nd phrase comes into play.
How much do you promise?
Well, it is really quite simple.
You don’t.
Over the years, the most common compliments I receive is on my poise while handling issues and my transparency. I rarely ever give my customers unrealistic expectations and rarely run away from telling an overly ambitious customer that they are setting themselves up for a letdown.
Prior to accepting any load, I map out the entire shipment and take into consideration potential loading delays at the shipper. I make sure my customer knows how many days the product will take to get there and that this is partially dependent on when the shipper gets the truck loaded.
I’ve seen so many brokers not look at this and just tell their customer “yeah, I’ll have the truck there” What they failed to educate their customer on is that they have lined up a shipment that is an illegal run for a solo driver and will have two extra days on it if they put a team on it.
Now that same broker has to decide whether they want to hope the solo somehow makes it or take a loss because they now need to include 2 days layover in the rate for a team.
If you take a second to lay everything out, you can be upfront with the customer prior to accepting the shipment. In most cases, the customer appreciates it and you both work it out ahead of time.
In other cases, you just gave yourself an opportunity to vet a customer and see if it’s a two-way relationship (if they value you, they won’t set you up for failure).
On top of mapping out the shipment, you also have to make sure to set the expectations for when problems occur.
This is something I tackle right when I first setup the customer and continue to say throughout our relationship.
I simply say, “I cannot promise you flawless shipments because there are simply too many variables out of my control. Issues are going to happen eventually. What I can promise you is that every truck I work with has my personal cell phone and I will handle issues just as well as anyone in the industry.”
You cannot prevent the issues that occur during a shipment but you can control how you handle them.
I hope these two phrases stick with you and that you seek transparency in your work.
Though some are unavoidable, especially with larger companies, you want to avoid strictly transactional relationships.
Me personally, I want relationships that evolve into friendship.
I want trust, loyalty and sustainability.
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