Does Your Freight Broker Use Voice Mail?

Connected to your Freight Broker?

How have you been faring during the pandemic? So many folks feel isolated. Business meetings, friendships, and family gatherings are often held online. We stream weddings and funerals from the comfort (or confinement) of our own homes.

The pandemic has changed so much in a few short months. Here at AMT, most of us have been working remotely. It’s kind of unusual for a freight broker to have the right combo of technology to make such a smooth transition to remote work. Our usually bustling and energetic office turned quiet in minutes. And yet, we still felt connected to one another. 

Relationships matter to us. AMT is a freight brokerage founded on the principle that strong relationships help both the manufacturers and distributors we serve and the wonderful small carriers we work with.

This emphasis on relationships shows up in the way we do business.

Let me tell you a little story about that.

A freight broker with no voicemail.

A few weeks ago, a member of our team, Mike, had the phones. What that means is that Mike took all the after-hours calls. Sometimes there aren’t any, but this particular week, there had been quite a few, so when his phone rang at 3:30 AM, he wasn’t surprised.

Yeah, he was a little groggy, but the customer on the other end of the phone had a problem. They needed to know where a shipment was because a product on that shipment was necessary to keep production moving. They realized they didn’t show receiving the most recent shipment, and they were almost out.

This customer is a drop-and-hook customer, so Mike figured the carrier assigned to this run had dropped the trailer earlier in the day. He logged into the system and pulled up the GPS tracking for the shipment. Bingo–it was right there in our system, and the data had been sent to the customer earlier in the day.

Apparently the communication about the shipment wasn’t passed from one shift to the next. It happens. Mike told the customer that the trailer had been dropped at 4:10 PM. All was well. The customer was relieved, and Mike settled in for another couple hours of sleep.

Until the customer called back in 10 minutes. Couldn’t find the trailer. Mike logged back into the system and this time he pulled up live trailer tracking, took a screenshot, and both emailed and texted it to the customer. Great thing about this screenshot is that it showed the exact door on the property where the trailer was sitting. 

Our customer was so pleased. They thanked Mike, who was now fully awake! He got up and made some breakfast, and our customer got the product and put it into production.

Does your freight broker do that?

A freight brokerage that answers the phone 24/7.

The pandemic has changed a lot of things, but it hasn’t changed our commitment to our customers and carriers. One way we make good on this commitment is answering our own phones.

We  have experienced logistics professionals on-call 24 hours a day. You never receive a phone answering service, a temporary workforce, or inexperienced newbies.

In addition, we have the technology (GPS Tracking, GEO Fencing, OCR Data Capture) to provide tracking and visibility so we can quickly get to the bottom of most late night phone calls!

Finally, we care. We care about our customers and our carriers. We’re big enough to have everything you need, but small enough to understand that every customer is mission critical. We take no customer for granted.

If your freight broker doesn’t operate this way, you’re missing out. Schedule a call with AMT today!