Load offer protocol

dcalien · Aug 29, 2008

I find that many times when I am available out of truck on pager, actually probably half the time, I get sent load offers and no phone call.

If I want a load badly, I find myself sitting in my van by my quaalcomm so as not to miss one.

I was loaded ahead of four vans one time and they swarmed me wanting to know why. When I said I have no idea, they all checked, and it was on their qc.

Every one of them had some problem or other with their phones, like being turned off, etc.

I am not posting this here to complain, but rather perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me might know how to get dispatch to enforce the call the driver rule when the driver is available out of truck on pager.

I am not sure who to talk to about it.

I have never missed a load because of it, and I really don't ever want to.

Any suggestions?

Turtle · Aug 29, 2008

I missed a load one time because of it. My status was "Out of Truck On Pager" and it just so happens that I was, in fact, out of the truck. Load was sent to me, I failed to respond within 10 minutes, the load was pulled and I was placed out of service. No phone call. Turns out, due to being out of service, yet another load went out that wasn't even offered to me, because I was out of service. I ended up sitting there in Davenport the entire weekend, instead of getting out of there with either one of those loads on Thursday, both of which I would have taken.

How I handled it was, I became ultra persistent, a veritable pest, until I got enough people mad at me that it became an issue with everyone involved. I do my job, and I do it well, and I'm accountable for everything I do. I pay Panther to find me loads, and part of that pay includes getting a phone call on load offers. If they fail to make the call, they will incur my wrath. Someone will be made accountable.

I played the chain of command thing, one because it's the proper thing to do, and two, because it gets more people involved and made aware of the problem. I first called my team leader, then the supervisor of the dispatcher who failed to make the call. I tried to get a hold of the actual dispatcher, to find out why he failed to make the call in the first place, but that never happened. I figure, if I'm gonna go off on somebody, it might as well be the person who deserves it. But they kept deflecting me from him, so..... everyone in the line got it, instead. I made a lot of phone calls and sent e-mails to the point where they probably though of it as SPAM, but I don't care. They talk of accountability over there, so let's see it.

I didn't ask for any monetary compensation, although I definitely should have gotten something. That wasn't what I was after. I was after people doing what they are actually paid to do, people being competent to do the job, and people being accountable for their actions and for the actions of the people under them. It's only happened that one time, and it hasn't happened again. Human error is one thing, and people make mistakes, so it may very well happen again, and depending on how they handle it, I can live with that. If they handle it poorly, I'll handle it accordingly.

But, in your case, if you get a load offer and no phone call, pick up the phone and call Driver Relations, and tell them you want clarification of why you were not called. Asked to be contacted either by the dispatcher who failed to call you, or their supervisor. If the answers you get aren't satisfactory, get a better clarification from Driver Relations Supervisor

LDB · Aug 29, 2008

Phones will receive SMS when the signal isn't good enough to get a call. I got the text message system as soon as it was available. More often than not the offer would come to the phone before it even came to the qc. Now, the text message is not formatted properly and doesn't give the info it should. I have begged and pleaded and nagged about it until the frustration meter went off the scale and it's still not fixed. Even with it crappy it's still better than nothing. If you get one load a year you'd have missed being out of the truck it's paid for itself at least and probably then some.

pelicn · Aug 29, 2008

We also have the SMS product. I agree with Leo, it needs work, but, it's something. Our QC turns off after 1 hour if the truck is off, so the SMS let's us know to turn the truck on. We don't even send an "out of truck on cell" message anymore

Turtle · Aug 30, 2008

If I don't have a cell signal and can't receive a phone call, well, I can't really blame that on Panther. I can, however, blame them for not even making the effort to place the call in the first place. SMS messaging has nothing to do with it, and isn't a substitute for laziness, ignorance (a training failure), or incompetence. Not to mention that two bucks a week for SMS text messaging is outrageous, truly. (That's what Qualcomm is charging, so I don't blame Panther for that, either.)

But, they pass it off as cheap, and if you get just one load a year that you would have otherwise missed (assuming they made the call in the first place and it couldn't go though) then it pays for itself. Well, no it doesn't pay for itself. Not really. Yeah, it might, but it doesn't, and rarely will. That's betting (liberally) on 5 load offers a week time 50 weeks a year is 250 load offers a year, versus the "insurance" of two bucks a week plus adding five dollars a month for the text messaging plan to my cell phone, which is $164 a year to pay for the SMS messaging, on the off chance that one load might get missed, and it's a load that will net me after all expenses more than $164.

And on top of that, the format and information of the SMS text message is only marginally better than useless. If the cost is so cheap, practically insignificant, they can eat it as part of the already highly over-priced $1,820.00 a year that I'm paying for the QC.

Now, obviously, if you do a lot of text messaging and already have a text plan on your cell phone, then the additional $104 a year for the SMS messaging isn't quite as bad (but still really high dollar insurance banking on that one load you might have missed, not to mention a drop in the $1820 bucket). Still, even without a text plan and having to pay ten cents per text message that I send or receive, how can QC (or Panther) justify $2 a week for perhaps 5 messages a week? Even 10 messages a week and that's twenty cents a pop. At 5 per week, it's 40 cents per message, and is outrageous, in light of the fact that it costs Qualcomm less than a penny per 100 messages sent out via SMS.

I'm not knocking the SMS messages. It's a good thing to have. But we're being nickeled, dimed and two dollared to death out here as it is, and this is one I won't buy into.

LDB · Aug 30, 2008

I agree that Panther should provide sms to anyone who wants it at no additional charge. The cost from QC is actually $5.95 a month or $1.38 a week. The total weekly for qc and sms should not be a penny above $25.00 and that's still overcharging. My sources tell me the weekly fee for both, to cover costs but not provide additional profit to the company, should be about $15.73. Companies, not just Panther but all companies, are thieves when it comes to qc charges.

Turtle · Aug 30, 2008

There's one, Schneider, I think it is, that charges something like $17 a week for the QC. That's at least in the neighborhood of reasonable. It covers the cost of the unit, as well as the costs of repair.

You can actually purchase your own Omnitracs or OmniVision unit from Qualcomm and then pay them the monthly fee direct. You're on your own when it comes to repairs, tho, and you'll pay through the nose if you ever need to have it repaired.

LDB · Aug 30, 2008

Up to $20 a week would be palatable. Anything over that leaves a bad taste in the mouth and a bad mark on the company price gouging operators on the fee. That pushes buttons really fast and makes me see lots of red when the company uses a mandated piece of equipment to steal money from their operators.

Turtle · Sep 1, 2008

I agree. The QC benefits the carrier far more than it benefits me. Far more. And in the few small ways it benefits me, they still tightly control the information I get and how I can use it. In almost all cases, I can get more and better information with a phone call than I can over the QC. Twenty bucks a week for a mandated piece of equipment that is of marginal use to me is about 400% of palatable.

bernieh48 · Sep 9, 2008

That's all good and well about the Sms texting but I signed up for it and are getting charged the $2 fee every week but still have yet to get one text message from them!