We have tens of thousands of fuel charges each month. I have to figure out some exception reports or something before beginning to think about compliance. Way in over my head.
So is TQL a cradle to grave model - meaning that you are doing the sales, the account management, and also covering the freight where each broker can be a one man operation? I'm sure the bigger accounts are supported by a team, but the other model I've seen is where you have carrier facing people who call on posted trucks and dispatch drivers and then customer only facing people who cold call, quote loads, and do the scheduling. Just curious big picture how the operation runs.
you quote loads, negotiate with customers, give them updates on loads, cold call to secure new business you also call on posted trucks, take inbound calls from carriers, dispatch trucks, check call trucks over the road to get updates if you do a certain amt in revenue, you get an assistant if you run a certain amt of loads each week, you can have people that only cover your freight you can also have people that do accounting for you but their salaries come out of your pay
So the Receiving Dock just announced that they will not unload any freight after Noon on Friday. So now I have to push back delivery for 10-15 truck back to Monday and pay layover fees or re-route to a crossdock. Then Monday morning the dock will have an extra half day of freight to unload. So that will put them behind all week until they work Saturday. Reason is supposedly they are doing an Emergency Inventory Friday and Saturday. Doubt whomevers bright idea this is has a job come July.
Anyone having trouble finding coverage the past few weeks? Also seems like all of my carriers are trying to raise rates.
Is the Port of Charleston a nightmare right now for anyone else? I had a container sit there for 30+ days before I could get a flatbed to actually pick it up. Had 5 truckers cancel on me in that time period.
That's rough. I don't deal much on the east coast, so I can't speak to that lane, but flatbeds and specialized trailers have been really tight lately. I'm adding 20-25% on my rates just so I can move the shit and not have my customers get pissed.
I spent all day trying to find a way to have cargo in iceland by tomorrow. its actually hard as fuck with only narrow body planes going up there. but i made a lot of money, so yay for me.
Saw a $17,000 Air Expedite from China the other day for 5 skids. Need to have my own Air Broker business.
Had a recent air expedite for 2 skids from BC to IL for $9300. It didn't deliver on time due to negligence on FedEx's part and FedEx may end up waiving the charge in full. They claimed that we didn't provide the customs broker info which caused the delay, but we have the paper trail.
So I stressed myself out all week because we were supposed to take the CPSM exam 1 today and I was not doing good on the practice exams. Get to the training room at our office this morning, none of us can get the secure browser required for the exam to install and launch. So now we get to schedule it on our own time at the Pearson center in Nashville. All that stress over nothing lol.
Had the new packaging tested by UPS for our 50-55" TV shipments. Yea it failed. Fun times man, fun times.
Yea putting 50-55 inch tvs in boxes with bubble inserts instead of foam and sending them through the small parcel network. Even I could tell you that shit ain't gonna work.
They do some pretty tough testing too. Like 17 edge/corner/face drops from a minimum of 18 inches. A couple of them from 36 inches.
We have some Shocks that come in once a week. About 10 crates of them. The Dunnage is incorrect so they shift in transit and at least 2-3 containers have to be inspected and issued a claim. The Packaging Engineers said it will take them 6 month to get to it.
I have a 6ft x 3ft x 5ft piece of machinery going from my manufacturing plant to a customers DC. As you can imagine, shipping anything there is a nightmare. I requested it all to be shipped together and not go LTL because it was already late. They shipped one misc item off it LTL, the nuts and bolts via UPS ground, the machine itself on another LTL, and the floor supports for it on ANOTHER LTL truck.
There's no way they'll ever get the nuts and bolts but that's not really a big deal though because we can buy that anywhere. Blows my mind that someone thought that was a good idea
It's an absolute shit show. My company deals primarily in bulk chemical shipping, and we have seen an incredible amount of chaos in that sector because there are so many chemical plants in Houston and similarly tanker carriers. One of our top carriers had 100-200 trailers destroyed in the storm, and one of our customers plants just exploded this morning.
Just had someone from one of the teams I work with ask me to ship something to a vendor of ours. Ok no problem. "Wait why is this in a wine box?", "hey, my director wanted me to double check, this isn't wine right?". Nope, just the only box he had available. Director comes over a little later and tells me to open it cause we don't ship anything we don't know what's inside. Yup it's wine. Motherfucker! Do you know how much trouble that could have caused. At least don't put the shit in a wine box!
From what i can tell they are like everyone else in the industry. My company offer the exact same as they do in regards to the online stuff. maybe theirs actually work though. also in this business its all about networks. you're not stronger than that dude in Singapore who's handling your shipment who barely knows what an air plane is. So what I would be really interested to know is who flexport works with across the world.
I would put TQL at #3 behind CH and Coyote on the brokerage pecking order. I could be wrong, but I think there is someone who has posted in this thread who works for or used to work for TQL. I use them some currently. I have nothing bad to say about them, but your service level with brokerages is pretty dependent on your individual broker. Any reason in particular that you ask?
The fuckers are persistent as fuck about calling me no matter how many times I tell them I don't make the decisions.
Just playing devils advocate here, but how do new carriers get in the door and start moving freight with you? I don't know how much TL freight you have that you move with brokers, but they will probably win some of your freight if you are shopping in the spot market often. I don't think it hurts to have decent depth in the route guide or under contract when the market gets tight.
We don't move much freight except for international. If they didn't call me 4 times a day even after I told them a couple weeks ago we weren't looking for anything I'd probably get them a number to call. No shit if I go through the caller ID on my work phone id bet 70% of the calls came from them. What really pissed me off was right before Christmas I told a guy on the phone we weren't looking and 5 minutes later I got a call from someone else there.