Bruce Outridge

Do I need customer service as an owner operator?

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Bruce

Most drivers and owner operators forget the importance of customer service because they don’t feel that they have to deal with the clients directly. They are very wrong and in a big way. If you are an owner operator have you thought about who your clients are in reality? Doing this exercise may surprise you if you take it seriously. So let’s look at how you affect the clients while conducting deliveries and communicating with clients. If you run the open board you may not concern yourself with customer service because many drivers don’t think they will return to that client unless they are on dedicated run. The truth is that any client that ships or receives goods with the company by truck deserves the best customer service available from every driver. In the industry we hear about customer service departments, business executives, and don’t see how we are involved in the important aspects of the client but the truth is that each customer has a number of points of contact that the company will be in contact with them. So what are those points?

Usually for any large contracts the top executives or appointed sales force will be involved and that will be the first point and most important in the beginning. That will be the point where all of the negotiations will take place to secure the customer’s freight contract. Once that point is completed it will diminish in contact to a point, but is still a critical point in the process. The next point will be the transport company internal client service department, such as customer service, order management, and so on. This point of contact is also critical and may or may not be in direct contact with the client depending on the order management system. This second point may also be done by a third party such as a load broker or load board service, but is still critical to great client service. The next point is you, the driver and may be the most critical point of all for the company. You are the live person dealing with another live person and basically could be the face of the company. Whether you are dealing with a receiver on the dock, a shipper in the yard, or phoning the front office for directions you are the face of the company and should be representing them as such. How you dress, the way you talk, and the ways you act are all important to how the client views your company. Are you pleasant to be around, are you patient when waiting for the load, is your trailer organized and clean? Or are you the opposite, have a filthy trailer, you haven’t showered in a few days, and are tired and grumpy, just a picture of professionalism to be sarcastic. Everyone has a part to play and you need to do yours.

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a leadership and business consultant specializing in the transportation industry. He can be reached at http://www.outridge.ca

Patience is a virtue, do you have any?

Posted on April 7, 2011 by Bruce

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If you read my post from last week you will see the 12 steps of professionalism that I think are important to becoming a professional driver. The steps also relate to anyone dealing with customers, coworkers, etc. Life on the road can be downright stressful to say the least, people who can’t drive or delays at companies, busy city centres and the like. Patience is critical to survival in the transportation industry. I am not sure who told certain drivers that if you yell, scream, and jump up and down you will get loaded faster, but that is common place on many docks across the country. So how do you handle the pressure of a delay?

First know what your policy is for delays. If you’re a driver do you know at what point your company starts to charge clients for delays? At what point is a co-worker, not replying back to a project detail causing your productivity to suffer? Most of us hound someone to get the results desired, but that doesn’t help team spirit, work relationships, or get that task finished to the standards required. First take a deep breath and remain calm. Educate the person on the importance of completing the task and that at a certain point the company will start charging for the delay. If that doesn’t start moving things any faster send them another reminder and inform your supervisor of the delay and the former discussion with the person involved. After that keep an eye on your time, move on with another project and make sure you note when the task was completed so you can inform your supervisor. Make sure to take down details of the person involved or department and any other particulars. Now I must stress that you don’t get hostile during this process, but keep your cool and explain that you have a job to do. The reason that it is important to document the situation is to give the company back up in order to either fix the delay or get compensated for the delay. I hear a lot of people complain about delays, but when you ask them specifics of the delay they can’t remember. Better yet is they complain to the boss but don’t have any particulars to back up their claim. If that’s the case it may as well not even happened. When I am managing projects from clients I mark down dates that they reply. It helps me gauge length of times for project estimates, but more important is when they come back to tell me the project took too long I can pull out a file showing the approval process and how long it took them to reply and so on.

Don’t let your productivity suffer because of someone else’s situation. Take ownership of your position.

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a leadership consultant specializing in the transportation industry. More information on Bruce can be found at http://www.outridge.ca

12 Steps of Professionalism

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Bruce

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A professional driver is more than someone who can just drive a big rig down the highway, there are regulations, hours of service and more to worry about. That’s not to mention the the load your carrying etc. Below are my 12 steps to being a professional driver. These are not in the order of importance, but there is a reason for outlining them this way, see if you can find out why:

Patience
Respect
Ownership
Friendly
Equipment
Safety
Strategic
Integrity
Orderly
Negotiable
Accountable
Licensed

I’ll go into the specific steps in future posts, but if you are professional driver see how many of these steps you need to improve on to make you the true professional that you are.

About the Author

Bruce outridge is a motivational speaker on leadership for the transportation industry. More information can be found at http://www.outridge.ca

Time is Money – How Much Have You Spent?

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Bruce

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In the business world time is money or so it is said. If you are wasting time you are wasting productivity therefore you are wasting money. That holds true for many of us in business or not. It’s all around us as well, just watch people as they rush around all day trying to catch up with this or trying to complete that. If you really want to tick them off ask them to complete a task for you by a certain time, and watch the fireworks go. Now some people don’t feel that time management can work for them. The excuses I get are that, “too many outside factors affect my time frame”, or “I am paid to work here for eight hours anyway”. Those situations may be true but that doesn’t mean you can’t be productive within that time frame. The group that probably needs time management the most but refuses to use it is the truck drivers of world. As I speak with owner operators across the country through seminars and workshops I hear the same thing, “Dispatch doesn’t give us the time we need” or “we can’t make any money!” That may be true but are you doing the things that are important for your business to be successful by using time wisely? As an entrepreneur working on and in my business I have to make sure I am working productively to not only grow my business, but completing the projects I receive from my clients. I also have to watch the outside factors don’t eat away my time, so I have to remain very scheduled to be productive. So how do you do that without losing sight of your lifestyle?

If you’re an entrepreneur then the best time management technique that I enjoy is through using colour to manage your time. To learn how to do that read my past article on how to “Colour Manage Your Time” which is posted on my blog. However we are talking about the professional driver here and there is certain situations that you will come across that will affect your time. Those outside forces are necessarily under anyone’s control as they may be weather or traffic related. You also have hours of service which tell you how much work you can put in during the day and so on. But as an owner operator you need to keep your eye on the profit and loss of your business and also future stability of the business through productivity. Many owner operators feel they don’t have to work hard or can schedule time off whenever they want, but that isn’t true as those wheels need to keep moving. So how do you plan for all of the unknown factors that affect your schedule?

The first part is to know your breakeven point for the business on a monthly basis. This will be based on the budget you created when starting your operation as an owner operator. How much work do you need? The next step is to make sure you know how much profit you want to make above your costs, is it 5%, 10%, or 20%. Now break your mileage in to the days you have available to work. So let’s say you need to complete 500 miles per day to create the income you want for your business. Your going to lose a certain amount of time unloading, loading, clearing customs, etc so that needs to be factored in to your calculations. If you are waiting to be unloaded for an hour that should be replacing the income for that driving time being lost. So as you factor in all of those situations you will be evaluating your operation to make sure each day you are making the money you have set out to make. Now let’s assume you are working in Canada and have 13 hours of driving time available to put in the miles. Five hundred miles will take approximately 10 hours of driving time. Factor in your breaks and inspections and you should require around 12 hours a day without any major delays. So set your daily limit at 12 hours and you have a safety net of an hour. Just because you can run 13 hours a day doesn’t mean you should. If you are trip planning effectively and managing your time, while watching your business you will find you are more productive with less time. You can also increase your profits by keeping your finger on the pulse of your business. Manage your time effectively on and off duty and you will succeed at time management. Remember time is money!

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a leadership consultant for the transportation industry and entrpeneurs. To view more information on programs and services available visit http://www.outridge.ca