Shippers Not Knowing What They are Doing

We have a few clients in the energy sector. One in particular who is a massive repair shop, whom has taken over as our number one margin account this year. They are a great customer so I cannot complain too much. But, this is more of an informational post to all of you who probably struggle with the same thing.

For years, we did not really need to work a lot on the weekends or at nights. This customer has changed that ballgame and has actually made us operate differently than we ever have. They run loads nearly 24/7. When a piece is done being repaired it basically has to go back out on a dedicated hot shot, box truck, sprinter, team drive step deck, you name it they need it done at that instant. The problem we are running into is that sometimes they order trucks from us BEFORE the repairs are done and the trucks end up sitting around in detention, laying over, or getting a TONU. This is inefficient for all of us. It is frankly a waste of time and money. I have sat down with their logistics manager and controller on a number of occasions and they dont seem willing to change this behavior. It has gotten to a point that now they complain if a truck shows up late to a delivery, which is in fact caused by them delaying the truck at the loading site. They will email me stating they never want to use that carrier again, meanwhile the carrier ran out of hours waiting to get loaded for 9 hours. It is a lose-lose but when a customer is your number one you just have to deal with it. Point of the post is that shippers sometimes have no idea what they are doing, they waste hundred of thousands of dollars, and no matter what you do, you have to say yes you are right Mr Customer...

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