Care and feeding of the Dispatchers

[Mugg2000]

I see quite often that Dispatchers appear to get beat-up quite often on many Forums.. My question is this, they must be judge by someone as to how their performance is. So when I see post that they just left a driver sitting and waiting on a Load for 12 -18 hours, I can only think this must not be by design. On the other hand I realize they might be prone to giving loads to those that would benfit the Dispatcher more.

How are Dispatchers rated as far as their job performance?

Is there a Magic formula one should consider when interacting with them?

Are Dispatchers the person one negotiates with in regards to Contract and Terms?

Are they the final authority on all issues?

Thank you in advance

Mike

 

[greg334]

Mike

Now I can’t speak for expediter dispatchers, but I was a dispatcher with about 150 people to deal with besides a few hundred customers.

> How are Dispatchers rated as far as their job performance?

Well we were rated on the amount of on time pickups, coordinating our drivers for specific areas and with stat pickups the turnaround time.

>Is there a Magic formula one should consider when
>interacting with them?

Yes, courtesy and professionalism. These people can make or break you and avoid pissing them off. Understand that the freight is customer driven, not dispatcher driven. I have yet heard if there are any dispatchers that are paid on commission, but I think it would be a good thing. I could not stand a driver yeling at me for any reason and in a couple cases I rally made their lives misrible for a week or two because they were yelling.

>Are Dispatchers the person one negotiates with in regards to
>Contract and Terms?

Can’t really answer this, but I would say in smaller companies would have someone who has many different hats, so to speak.

>Are they the final authority on all issues?

Again I would say in a smaller company, yes but larger ones there are sales reps and customer service reps who directly work with the customer and resolve a problems with the customer. If you are talking about drivers, sometimes there is a driver coordinator or driver manager that deals with drivers issues.

Hope this helps.