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Author: Devops Admin

LTL 101:Restricted Commodities

Posted 6 years ago

Did you know that certain types of commodities cannot be shipped via LTL carriers due to governmental regulations and that LTL carriers can refuse to accept certain items as a matter of company policy? In many cases, the root issue is liability — certain items are too valuable and/or high target items for theft to make them worth the risk to handle and transport.

Items of Extraordinary Value:
Carriers have different policies regarding these items and they may be willing to accept certain items if they have the appropriate insurance coverage and specialize in the transport of valuable merchandise.

Restricted or Prohibited Items:
Another group of items that LTL carriers may refuse to transport are those excluded by government regulations or due to being extremely hazardous in nature. In addition, carriers that lack the proper storage and stowage equipment to maintain the proper temperature will refuse certain items, such as refrigerated items. Finally, certain items (such as canoes) may be prohibited by certain carriers because of their size, shape, difficulty to stow and difficulty to handle.

Do your homework and research LTL carriers carefully!

Restricted Commodities are listed in the Rules Tariffs of each LTL carrier. To give you an example of how complex some of these Restricted Commodities sections are, please visit FedEx’s “Prohibited and Restricted Articles” section of their rules tariff by clicking the link: http://www.fedex.com/us/freight/rulestariff/prohibited_articles.html

Make sure to address specific questions to the carrier you are considering. Within the world of LTL carriers there is a great deal of specialization. For instance, some carriers specialize in the transport of perishable items or hazardous materials. If you have items to transport that fall into both of these categories, you may be forced to hire two separate LTL carriers.

Whatever company you choose to move your hard-to-handle item(s), make sure to do your homework. Make sure you select a freight company with a strong track record, solid liability coverage, and robust maintenance and quality control processes to ensure top performance.

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Training Tuesday– Tips for a Great End of the Year

Posted 6 years ago

As we move steadily towards the end of the year, it is important to continue to work hard to gain new customers and keep existing customers satisfied. Below are some of our top tips to make the end of the year just as strong and successful as the beginning.

1.Call every existing customer you have.

Remind them why they already rely on you. Let them know that you and your staff will continue to provide excellent service through the remainder of the year, and beyond. Also ask them if there are any new projects or additional shipments coming in the next few months that you should prepare your staff for.

2.Call every “hot prospect” you have.

You never know when a prospective shipper may have encountered a problem with their current 3PL or carrier. You may luck into calling them on a day when they are receptive to hearing how your agency can provide better service than what they are currently receiving.

3.Train your team.

Ensure that your team has the knowledge and tools they need to finish the year strong. If they need additional sales or operations training, make sure they get it.

4.Set an “end-of-year” goal.

People find a way to achieve great things when they have a well-defined goal. Review your prior year’s results and compare them to current year-to-date run count and revenue results. Then, set an aggressive, but attainable, goal for you and your staff.

5.Make 10 customer calls per week for the remainder of the year.

By simply making 10 new prospect calls per week, you’ll contact almost 200 new prospective customers by year’s end.

 

Selling is the key to our success; as individual agents, and as a company. Our sales success has a direct impact on our ability to grow, to become more profitable, and to take market share – today and in the future.

 

“It is not your customer’s job to remember you. It is your obligation and responsibility to make sure they don’t have the chance to forget you.” – Patricia Fripp

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Training Tuesday:Maximize Joint Sales Calls

Posted 6 years ago

If you have sales people in your organization, and you’re not making joint sales calls with them, you’re missing out on one of the best tools to grow your business. Joint sales calls are beneficial in many ways, primarily for the less-experienced salesperson on the call, but they also provide an opportunity for the experienced salesperson to build greater relationships with their team members and customers. If you’re going to take the time to go on a joint sales call, there are a few things to keep in mind to ensure that your joint sales calls are most successful. Ask yourself the questions below before planning a joint sales call to maximize the benefits of the call for yourself, your team, and your customers.

1.What do you want to accomplish on this call?

Determine what you’d like to gain from conducting a joint sales call. Are you trying to improve the skills of a new team member? Improve a relationship with an existing customer? Or, make a sale to a new customer? After you’ve answered these questions, be sure to set concrete goals before the call and create a sales strategy that works towards that goal.

2.What action do you want from the customer at the end of this call?

This should be decided before every call to give you and your sales person a direction when making the sales call. If you want the customer to make a purchase at the end of the call your approach will be different than if the purpose of the call is fact finding. There are many different types of sales calls that will benefit the customer and help you grow the account; fact finding, service calls, bid review, sales presentation, etc. Know exactly what kind of sales call you’re making and prepare accordingly.

3.How will this call reinforce the value of your company?

What value does this joint call offer? Does it allow you to emphasize a strength of the company? How can you best take advantage of the time on the call to create value for your customer and the company? Make sure not to waste the customer’s time. Be mindful to accomplish your goals on the call, but more importantly, ensure that the time spent with the customer has value to them and to their company.

4.What am I teaching my salespeople today to help them achieve their potential?

How does this joint sales call allow you to be the best leader and help your salespeople to become stronger? Is this call part of a larger effort to create an encouraging environment for your team or is it intended mainly for sales purposes? Know what the value of joint sales calls is to your sales people. Sales representatives are uniquely different – make sure that the sales person you ride with will get the maximum benefit of your time, expertise, and coaching.

5.How am I creating a motivational climate for my salespeople?

Is a joint sales call the first step to motivating your employees? What else can you do to create a team that is motivated and empowered to be successful? There are few traits more valuable to a sales person than a positive attitude. Be sure when making joint sales calls that you demonstrate the power of a positive attitude to your sales person and to your customer. A little motivation can go a long way. When joining a member of your sales team on sales calls, make sure you demonstrate a dynamic, positive and upbeat attitude and approach to your sales efforts. Your example and sales coaching could be the key to your employees enjoying a successful sales career.

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LTL 101:Billing Accuracy

Posted 6 years ago

Many shippers have expressed concern about accuracy of billing by LTL carriers. Having pushed the LTL carriers to be more vigilant with making corrections for weight and other aspects of shipments for proper revenue capture, SJ Consulting researched the validity of such perception by conducting an extensive survey with several large LTL shippers, 3PLs, and freight audit and pay firms, with particular thanks to Williams & Associates. The freight charges on LTL shipments by these companies exceed $8 billion over a 12­ month period, representing 22 percent of the total industry revenue. For decades, the LTL industry has relied on an honor system for shippers to provide true characteristics of their shipments, required to accurately bill the customers for their shipments.

The survey found range of billing accuracy was 94 to 99 percent depending on the carrier, with the average being 97 percent. The most interesting revelation of the survey was that what shippers perceive as a billing error actually is due to shippers providing an estimated weight or freight class for dimensional attributes of their shipment that are corrected on more shipments as more LTL carriers deploy scales and dimensional machines. Given that about 50% of bills of lading have errors in weight or description of the shipment, it’s no surprise that a correct invoice from a LTL carrier can get perceived as a billing error.

Despite shippers’ perception, the LTL industry has an impressive record in billing accuracy, and it is finally converting rapidly from an honor system.

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SunteckTTS andMillerCoors Team Up for California Wildfire Relief Efforts

Posted 6 years ago

August 6 – Frisco, TX – SunteckTTS, a leading provider of agent‐based, multi‐modal transportation solutions, and MillerCoors, a leading brewing company, have partnered to donate and deliver 20 pallets of canned water to Northern California as part of the Red Cross relief efforts for the recent wildfires in the state.

The Carr Fire, which has been ravaging Shasta County, California since July 23, has destroyed more than 1,000 homes and damaged hundreds of additional homes, businesses, and other buildings. Many thousands of residents remain evacuated even as others have been allowed to return to the wreckage, and resources for disaster relief are desperately needed. There are more than a dozen other fires raging throughout the state of California.

MillerCoors is donating around 50,000 cans of water in connection with the American Red Cross Disaster Relief program for the California wildfires. SunteckTTS is proud to be partnering with MillerCoors to donate the transportation costs to get the full truckload of water to the community members in need in Redding, CA.
SunteckTTS and MillerCoors are proud to be a part of the relief efforts led by the Red Cross to provide these essential resources to those affected by the wildfires in California.

 

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About SunteckTTS
With offices in Jacksonville, FL, and Frisco, TX, SunteckTTS combines two third-party providers of transportation and logistics management services to create one of the largest multimodal, agent-based freight management service providers in the United States. The company provides truckload brokerage services, direct rail and intermodal drayage, less-than-truckload, utilizing more than 30,000 carriers and a fleet of over 2,000 trucks. SunteckTTS agents service a wide range of markets including food, oil, automotive, electronics, textiles, lumber, paper/printing products and machinery across North America.
For more information, please visit www.suntecktts.com

 

About MillerCoors
Through its diverse collection of storied breweries, MillerCoors brings American beer drinkers an unmatched selection of the highest quality beers, flavored malt beverages and ciders, steeped in centuries of brewing heritage. Miller Brewing Company and Coors Brewing Company brew national favorites such as Miller Lite, Miller High Life, Coors Light and Coors Banquet. MillerCoors also proudly offers beers such as Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy from sixth-generation Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company, and Blue Moon Belgian White from modern craft pioneer Blue Moon Brewing Company, founded in 1995. Beyond beer, MillerCoors operates Crispin Cider Company, an artisanal maker of pear and apple ciders using fresh-pressed American juice, and offers pioneering brands such as the Redd’s franchise, Smith & Forge Hard Cider and Henry’s Hard Sodas. Tenth and Blake Beer Company, our craft and import division, is the home to craft brewers Hop Valley Brewing, Revolver Brewing, Saint Archer Brewing Company and the Terrapin Beer Company. Tenth and Blake also imports world-renowned beers such as Italy’s Peroni Nastro Azzurro, the Czech Republic’s Pilsner Urquell and the Netherlands’ Grolsch. MillerCoors, the U.S. business unit of the Molson Coors Brewing Company, has an uncompromising dedication to quality, a keen focus on innovation and a deep commitment to sustainability. Learn more at MillerCoors.com, at facebook.com/MillerCoors or on Twitter at @MillerCoors.

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LTL 101:Clean BOLs

Posted 6 years ago

When shipping LTL freight, you must make sure your BOLs are clean and precise prior to sending them to your shippers. Extra language in the special instructions section of BOLs only causes billing issues. Take a look at the below examples where the BOLs are very busy and not easily readable:

  • Let’s stop putting so much traffic in the special instructions!
  • PU# is fine, but not 3 times
  • PU instructions FCFS is not needed and does not protect you or the customer from charges
    • If the carrier is delayed due to the shipper you will be charged regardless
    • If they can’t get in timely or for another reason they will skip the pick-up
  • “No APT needed for LTL shipments” –  This is unnecessary information because if the consignee states appointment is needed it will be assessed
    • The carrier already assumes appointment is not needed.
    • This includes daily routines between consignee and carrier
      • If a consignee isn’t always open during regular business hours, some LTL carriers will have that particular address flagged for appointments no matter what we have on the BOL
  • Headings: “BOL SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS:” “PICKUP DIRECTIONS” “PICKUP NOTES” “PICKUP INSTRUCTIONS” “DELIVERY INSTRUCTIONS”  should be consolidated or removed all together

  • Again, “FCFS DELIVERY” is not needed and does not protect you or the customer from charges
  • “1000-1600” – By putting hours on the BOL, some carriers may flag the shipment for an appointment because standard LTL operating hours will always be assumed
    • If the carrier’s cut time from the terminal is 8am and this consignee is close to the terminal then this should be flagged because they would have to wait 2 hours prior to attempting delivery
  • “MUST CALL” – This verbiage may be mistaken for notify or an appointment because some LTL billing clerks may not catch the remaining portion due to the busyness of the BOL

  • “No additional accessorial will be approved without prior authorization” – This wording is irrelevant because the carrier will always charge based on their rules tariff and/or contract with the paying party

Now that you have cleaned up your BOL, you can’t stress enough to your customer:
“Make sure this BOL is handed to the carrier so that no additional charges occur!”

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LTL 101:Unexpected Charges

Posted 6 years ago

Did you know that many customers get invoiced at a much higher rate due to their shipments being “hit” with Cubic Capacity, Exceeds Linear Feet, or Oversize Dims? All three of these things are different and very expensive so pay close attention to what your customer is shipping.

Cubic Capacity
This is when a shipment is greater than 750 cubic feet and an average density of 6 or less (some carriers are 4 or less).

  • Example of a Cubic Capacity load:
    • 6 Pallets at 2600 lbs., each pallet is 48x48x55, cubic feet is 768, and the density is only 5.91
  • This shipment would get “hit” with cubic capacity without a quote.

 

Linear Foot Rule
Each carrier has their own version of the linear foot rule. If your shipment equals more than the LTL linear foot rule for that carrier then it will get “hit” with the “exceeds linear feet” fee.

  • Example of Linear Foot load:
    • 5 pallets at 5000 lbs., each pallet is 49x49x50, and because the pallets cannot be placed side by side this shipment takes up a little more than 20’ of space

 

Oversize
Each carrier has an over dimension rule; most LTL carriers are 12′. The oversize accessorial should be applied to any shipment 12’ or more. You can find the “Linear Foot Rule” for most carriers by looking at their carrier tariff on their websites.

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LTL 101:Pick-ups and Deliveries

Posted 6 years ago

This week we are covering some of our top tips for easy, efficient, and cost-effective pick-up and delivery tips.

Pick-Ups:

  • Any pick-up (P/U) entered after 2:30 PM local time should be called into the carrier to insure availability, otherwise the request will roll over to the next day
  • Lift Gate P/Us must be called into the carriers because Lift Gates are not readily available at every terminal
  • All Container Freight Stations and Airline P/Us require Delivery Order and Entry paperwork (3416 document), these need to be sent 24 hours in advance because drivers will need these documents in hand prior to P/U
  • P/Us are not Guaranteed
  • All carriers require a 2 hour window for P/Us
  • P/Us are done in the afternoon because drivers have to deliver freight before they can start pickups
    • If your shipper needs an AM P/U it is best practice to call the carrier to set something up which will most likely incur additional charges
  • The shipper must have our system generated BOL to provide to the driver at the time of P/U or our rates will not apply
    • This is not something the carrier will have via our P/U requests in BTMS
  • If a LTL driver needs to reference a P/U number, it is best practice to put that number on the first line of the shipper name. Please see the example below:

ABC Distribution Co > Ref # 123456

4567 Main Street

Anywhere, NY 10014

 

Deliveries: 

  • Transit times and delivery dates are estimations and can be delayed for many reasons
    • Add an additional day if a shipment is interlined
    • Add 2-3 days if a shipment is traveling by rail
  • If the shipment must be delivered by a certain date and time, spend the extra money and have the shipment guaranteed
    • If “Guaranteed” is not on the BOL at time of P/U no adjustments can be made to the invoice
  • Volume Shipments cannot be Expedited or Guaranteed
  •  Re-delivery rates are based on weight and can get very pricey

 

It is imperative to make sure the consignee is ready to accept the freight so that additional charges are not incurred.

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LTL 101:Delivery Expectations & PODs

Posted 6 years ago

Last Blog we discussed educating our shippers in order to ensure our BOL is set up correctly and to avoid a possible dispute with the carrier regarding our invoice. This week we want to discuss educating our consignees so they know what to expect at the time of delivery.

It is very important to educate your consignee BEFORE the freight is delivered about what the process will be like. Will they need a liftgate? Will the driver be helping unload the freight in any form or manner? By asking these questions in advance, and by making sure that the consignee and you are on the same page, you can minimize additional charges on your invoice.

On the delivery receipt/proof of delivery (POD), issues should be noted if you suspect that the value of the product has been compromised. Make sure to note any damage to the packaging, and/or missing product. Having these notes on the POD makes it easier to file a freight claim with the carrier. Claims can take quite a long time so anything that you can do upfront saves time down the road.

Another tactic you can take is to refuse the shipment upon delivery if damage is present. Refusing a shipment means that the consignee does not accept the freight in the condition presented – meaning you will eventually file a damage claim. This will alert the carrier that something is wrong with the shipment and that they should get in touch with the appropriate party. Make sure you use this tactic responsibly, because if a shipment is not damaged the carrier can actually tack on a redelivery fee. Yikes!

Five of the most common additional services on a POD include:

  1. Lift Gate – Hydraulic lift on the rear of a truck used to assist in the unloading of freight.
  2. Inside Delivery – The driver is only responsible for moving the freight off the truck. If the driver helps move the freight more than a few feet away from the truck, even if it’s not “inside,” then an Inside Delivery fee may apply. Be very careful with this one because the terminology can be misleading and it varies by carrier.
  3. Limited Access (Residential) – This is up to the carrier’s discretion, however, there are locations that will always be deemed limited access. If a business is run from a home, or is in a residential area, carriers may charge this fee.
  4. Sort/Segregate – Certain locations may require a carrier to sort and segregate a shipment. This is additional handling beyond the normal duties of a driver that will incur additional fee(s). This charge is especially prevalent in grocery stores or distribution centers.
  5. Detention – With most LTL carriers, the first 30 minutes from when the driver arrives are free. Any additional time is subject to an additional detention fee. Again, the length of this “free time,” and the charge it carries, varies by carrier.

So the next time you sign a POD when receiving your shipment, be sure to review it and see if any additional services listed are being used. If a service is pre-printed on the POD, then the need for this service was most likely known in advance. However, if the driver marks that an additional service was performed, then there will be an additional charge. In some cases, it may be good practice to have your consignee obtain a copy of the POD themselves.

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Training Tuesday:Preparation Before the Sales Call

Posted 6 years ago

How many times have you been confronted by a salesperson that knows nothing about you or your business? Did they launch into a barrage of “situation” questions and expect you to answer all of them? Or, worse yet, the salesperson didn’t ask any questions, but instead jumped right into their presentation about something that you have no interest in. Unfortunately, that kind of sales technique is the norm, not the exception. Preparation before the sales call is critical.

Knowledge is power. You should know as much as you can about your service, your industry, your competitors, and your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. You should also learn as much as possible about your prospective client before you make contact with them.

Below are four basic elements of successful sales preparation:

  1. Know the industry. Technology and trends are rapidly changing and new services are being offered continuously. Read industry specific publications, websites, or periodicals. Extensive and up-to-date knowledge of the industry provides your customers with greater confidence in your recommendations and abilities.
  2. Know your company. Having a clear, thorough understanding of what we do, and how we do it, will allow you to field customer questions and objections more easily. Know what areas need improvement and what is unique and adds value to what we offer. Seek to learn as much as possible about the company history and path for the future. This will allow you to offer an honest and realistic picture of what you and your company bring to the table.
  3. Know your competition. Know the competition’s strengths and weaknesses, and ask your customers what they like and dislike about your competitors. Compare your services, features, equipment, billing process, service levels, dispatching methods, and then use that to determine differentiating factors you can feature in your sales presentation.
  4. Know your customer. Complete knowledge of your customer’s company will show interest, will always impress them, and will represent an important first step in earning a customer’s confidence and business. An understanding of the potential customer’s industry, requirements for service, and general information about the customer’s company and business speeds the vital relationship building process.

You must be mentally prepared before you make a sales call. The degree to which a salesperson can create rapport and build trust is in direct relationship to the amount of preparation that has taken place before the sales call is made. The result of every sales call reflects the amount of time the salesperson invested in getting ready for the meeting.

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