Do you know whether or not your company is a preferred shipper and receiver? If you do not know the answer to this question, you will want to find out what it is.
If your company is not a preferred shipper and receiver, you will want to find out why. You will want to see an improvement in your shipping and receiving protocols.
You are probably wondering why you want your company to be a preferred shipper and receiver. There are several reasons why you will want to be a company that is known for being a great shipper and receiver.
But, the main reason you want to ensure that your company meets these criteria is because you want the truckers, who are, in many ways, the lifeblood of your business, to be happy.
If the truckers who bring products to you and take them away do not feel like you care about them, eventually, they will not want to interact with your business.
At a time when the country is facing an 80,000 trucker deficit due to protests, labor shortages, and related issues, you do not want to leave a bad taste in their mouths, as finding replacements could be quite tricky.
This article will explain what a preferred shipper and receiver is and why you want your company to be one.
What Is A Preferred Shipper And Receiver?
When it comes to businesses, a preferred shipper and receiver is a company who is thought highly of by the truckers who come and go from their facility.
Generally speaking, if the truckers integrated into your shipping and receiving logistics are happy with how your business treats them, they will identify you as a preferred shipper and receiver.
Why Do You Want To Be A Preferred Shipper And Receiver?
You want your company to be a preferred shipper and receiver because happy truckers make for happy logistics.
Suppose your company is not a preferred shipper and receiver. In that case, truckers will not want to go to your facility and will go out of their way to avoid it.
As we live through a time of upheaval in the trucking industry, which has resulted in a national deficit of 80,000 truckers, now is not the time to disregard these men and women who are essential to your business.
And truckers can directly affect the perception of your business both in your Google rankings and social media presence.
For example, truckers will often use Google and Facebook reviews to rate how they feel about you as a shipper and receiver.
Suppose most truckers who come to your warehouse feel you are not a quality shipper and receiver. In that case, this will often result in them leaving negative reviews and comments on your Google and Facebook assets.
A collection of poor reviews from truckers integrated with your shipping and receiving on Google can negatively impact your search rankings.
Furthermore, if prospects and clients see a long list of bad reviews on Google or Facebook, this may turn them off from wanting to do business with your company.
Think about it, if a prospect were to review your company's Google listing or Facebook page and the majority of reviews were negative and accompanied by comments noting what a terrible experience it was to be at your business, are your prospects really going to want to choose your company?
How Can You Tell If You Are A Preferred Shipper And Receiver?
This one is pretty easy; follow the truckers. As mentioned above, many truckers will leave Google and Facebook reviews and comments.
Reading these reviews will give you a good idea of whether or not your company is a preferred shipper and receiver.
Suppose the majority of the comments from truckers are positive, and the reviews are mostly 3.5 - 5.0 stars. In that case, you can safely assume that your company is a preferred shipper and receiver.
How Can A Company Become A Preferred Shipper And Receiver?
If your business has many trucks coming and going from your facility, then chances are, truckers are rating your business. And you do not want to find yourself pegged as a lousy shipper and receiver.
So the big question is, how do you become a preferred shipper and receiver? In the section below, we will review some ways you can help ensure that your company is a preferred shipper and receiver.
How To Become A Preferred Shipper And Receiver
When it comes to being a preferred shipper and receiver, there are various things that you can do to help make your company pleasurable to work with for the truckers who frequent your business.
As far as walking the walk, we would suggest that to become a preferred shipper; you will want to implement best practices.
A best practice would be for the owner of your facility to walk the exact pathway that the driver will walk upon entering your warehouse so that you can see what the experience is like and then optimize it as needed for what the drivers are looking for.
This journey starts the minute a driver drives into your parking lot. So that is where you will want to begin your walkaround and answer a few questions right off the bat.
For example, is your signage at your facility appropriate? Think about this from the driver's perspective. You will want clear and concise signage that makes it easy for the driver to navigate from the road through your facility and back on the road again.
If truckers constantly have to come into your corporate office to ask questions like, where am I supposed to park? Where is the shipping and receiving entrance? Where are the bathrooms I can use? Is there a place for me to grab a cup of coffee and a donut? Or, Why is no one picking up the phone number the sign says to call?
This clearly indicates that you are dropping the ball and setting yourself up to be known as a poor shipper and receiver to the trucking community.
So, you will want to implement the proper signage and protocols to make the trucker's journey to and from your building as easy as possible.
What Are Some Other Ways To Be A Preferred Shipper And Receiver?
Walking the first steps of your trucker's journey is an essential step to being a preferred shipper and receiver. But there is much more to be done.
Now, you may be asking yourself, why does being a preferred shipper and receiver revolve around truck drivers? Let's dive into this topic below.
On average, there's one driver available for every ten tractor-trailers that are loaded and ready to be moved. So you've got a lot of competition for loads to be moved as drivers start to network and get out to the field.
Once drivers are on the road and in the know, they will not want to go to poor shippers and receivers. They will communicate with each other, so they know who is a good and bad shipper and receiver.
The likelihood of your freight being moved if the driver doesn't want to go to your facility is very unlikely. So you want to be proactive and create an environment where drivers want to come, right?
If they have their choice of facilities and loads and they get paid the same on all ten of them, they will pick the one they prefer.
And there are various ways to make your facility a trucker-approved shipper and receiver.
Ways To Be A Trucker Preferred Shipper And Receiver
You can offer various things to the truckers who come to your facility to help build rapport with them and make them more inclined to rate you as a preferred shipper and receiver.
Access to your parking lot for drivers to sleep overnight, access to a bathroom, access to a place to grab a coffee or donut with a refrigerator 24/7, and allowing them to drop their trailer off in the yard, hook up to an empty, and then go on their way are essentials when trying to become a preferred shipper and receiver.
These things will make your drivers very happy. This will most likely result in you being identified among the trucker community as a preferred shipper and receiver.
And if you want to go the extra mile for your drivers, you will want to consider adding a driver waiting area. If your facility is set up for live loads and live on loads, that's comfortable for them.
You want to think about the driver's perspective and walk their walk so that you can live their ideal vision of a preferred shipper and receiver.
To reiterate, when a driver comes to your business, they will ask themselves the following questions.
How's the signage? Do I get to talk to somebody? Am I asked to wait around for a long time? Is this business making it easy for me to do my job while providing perks such as a dedicated bathroom and kitchen area where I can rest and enjoy a coffee before hitting the road?
Suppose you roleplay these questions and all or some of the answers you come up with indicate that your drivers would not be happy in the real-life equivalent situation. In that case, you know you have some work to do.
Once you have made adjustments to each of these areas and you can confidently say that you think your drivers will be happy, you are on your way to being a preferred shipper and receiver.
This way, when you're paired up against other people's loads and facilities, the truckers will say, "oh yeah, I remember that company, and I love going there. I'll take that load. It's going to be easier for me to move stuff around."
If you do this and you do it right, you will have happy drivers who will gladly identify you as a preferred shipper and receiver.
Is Industrial Packaging A Preferred Shipper And Receiver?
Based on the feedback and reviews that we have received, we can honestly say yes, we are a preferred shipper and receiver.
However, to make it even easier for companies and drivers to express their feelings about how we are doing regarding our shipping and receiving, we would like to invite you to interact with us on a deeper level.
By clicking the image below, you can follow Industrial Packaging on Twitter. Here you can send us feedback about how we are doing with shipping and receiving (and all other aspects of the business as well).
We look forward to connecting with you on social media and are hoping you found this article enlightening and valuable.
