Thanks FedEx Custom Critical

[nightcreacher]

[ Having been at FedEx for 10yrs myself and even been in white glove for 3 of those yrs, I can agree with Bruno on this one though. In the 10 years we were at FedEx they never once said good morning or afternoon.] this was part of a quote from Bernieh48.

I cant believe this statement.I've been around a long time I admit,not as long as some.longer than most,but when I make a call,being it to dispatch,or Contractor Relations or even my CC ,I always get a good greeting.being it morning, noon, or night.

As far as being inside FECC's office building,and thats what it is,an office,its not a trucking terminal,or truck stop,its an office building.Its not a place for the contractors to gather and talk shop.And yes, if you need to see someone there,you can very easy get intouch with anyone in the whole building,you just have to go thru chanels.

 

[nightcreacher]

Oh but in Phil's eye's the Fed is perfect. They never leave trucks sitting. And there are many reason in life for why drivers might need to get home. My father passed away in Jan. and Panther was great in getting us home both when he was in the hospital on his death bed and then again for the funeral. But I guess that never happens with Phil as he has the Fed's magical freight to get him home.

Well i guess I must be special,years back when my father passed away,i was on a radio active move,got the message to call safety,and they offered to buy my ticket home,didnt need a load

 

[bernieh48]

Well that's fine that they treat you nice when you call in, but that does not mean it's the same with everyone else. The only ones that ever gave a somewhat nice greeting was the white glove dispatchers. There again like Bruno said it's just a matter of choice whether you want to be treated as a business or a human being. Time and time again all we ever got was a response of "you chose your job" from the Fed. Well yes I did choose my job but that doesn't mean I have to be degraded in the process.

Never mind it's all relative anyway. FedEx CC is one of the leaders in the business. They have their good qualities just like every other company does. Bruno was simply stating some of the differences. Goodness. Why is it some are quick to jump on his every post?

 

[jaminjim]

Goodness. Why is it some are quick to jump on his every post?

It's not that, more along the line that nobody said that the Fed was just kisses and hugs.

 

[ATeam]

Oh but in Phil's eye's the Fed is perfect. They never leave trucks sitting. And there are many reason in life for why drivers might need to get home. My father passed away in Jan. and Panther was great in getting us home both when he was in the hospital on his death bed and then again for the funeral. But I guess that never happens with Phil as he has the Fed's magical freight to get him home.

You are misrepresenting me. FedEx Custom Critical is not perfect in my eyes but it is the closest thing to perfect we have found for the kind of expediting we want to do.

I have never said FedEx Custom Critical does not leave trucks sitting. Indeed, if you read my blog entries from the last two days, you will see me talking about the sitting we are doing right now.

About getting home in a family emergency, it would be a positive contribution to readers, especially people researching the industry, if you talked more about that in the thread "How Do You Get Home."

We have never had to return home for a family emergency but we know the day will come. When it does, the only call we will make to our carrier will be to dispatch to take the truck out of service.

We have money set aside to cover emergencies and will use it when the purpose is to get home in a hurry. Its not freight that will get us home. It will be money for a plane ticket or truck fuel that does. If it is a family emergency, it's not about finding freight to get us home. It's about getting home.

 

[davekc]

We have money set aside to cover emergencies and will use it when the purpose is to get home in a hurry. Its not freight that will get us home. It will be money for a plane ticket or truck fuel that does. If it is a family emergency, it's not about finding freight to get us home. It's about getting home.
============================================
That is all well and good for you Phil but I believe the majority of members would prefer a paid way home if that option is available. The ending result is still getting home. Mind as well make it profitable rather than bearing a unnecessary cost.

 

[ATeam]

That is all well and good for you Phil but I believe the majority of members would prefer a paid way home if that option is available. The ending result is still getting home. Mind as well make it profitable rather than bearing a unnecessary cost.

So, are you going to provide some details that are useful to others, or just keep speaking in generalities that people cannot act on? Just how does it work to do this backhaul thing you do? And if it is such a good thing, why are more people not doing it?

 

[davekc]

There are a lot of variables depending on the vehicle size, location, where someone is trying to go, time constraints etc. There isn't a one size answer that fits every situation. That is why I usually have someone PM/EM me or call me. That of course I have been doing for many years here on EO.
But, it isn't anything that is a grand secret as there are many that obtain their own freight whether with a carrier or using their own authority. Quite a few right here on EO for that matter. Pretty much the same reason they don't go into a lot of detail because of those variables.
Maybe something could be put together at some point with just the basics.

 

[jaminjim]

Phil said:
If there was, and if we wanted to expand our freight-finding abilities, and if our next carrier of choice did not have enough freight to keep us busy, how long do you think it would take Diane and me to reconfigure our business and develop outside-freight finding ability? A day? A week? A month?

Not to pick at you Phil but there is a difference between freight finding, and developing good business relationships to be able to get loaded quicker with higher paying freight. and working with several Brokers at the same time so that you can maximize your revenue.

 

[davekc]

Not to pick at you Phil but there is a difference between freight finding, and developing good business relationships to be able to get loaded quicker with higher paying freight. and working with several Brokers at the same time so that you can maximize your revenue.
====================================
There you go.
Anyone can look at a load board. Finding and developing those relationships are the key in many cases. Sometimes it is what you know, and sometimes it is who you know.

 

[jaminjim]

If I had to choose, I'll take the who you know.

 

[davekc]

If I had to choose, I'll take the who you know.

Yep. I think that is the part Phil doesn't get. Kinda hard to do a post of "who do you know".

 

[ATeam]

Anyone can look at a load board. Finding and developing those relationships are the key in many cases. Sometimes it is what you know, and sometimes it is who you know.

I would expect that it is both. Knocking on doors, making calls, making visits, and doing professional networking is something we have both done in the past and done well. If the need to change rose, we are up to the task. But for now, and hopefully forever, we are content to wait for the beep. The stress is low, the money is good and we get to go outside and play.

 

[pelicn]

Again, Welcome to Panther Bruno

For newbies that are reading this thread, the bottom line in all of this is, you have to find the carrier that fits you. As you can see there are many different reasons for a carrier to be a good "fit" for you. We've been with both of the above mentioned carriers, we like things about both carriers and if we could combine them we think we would have THE perfect carrier.

 

[davekc]

Again, Welcome to Panther Bruno

For newbies that are reading this thread, the bottom line in all of this is, you have to find the carrier that fits you. As you can see there are many different reasons for a carrier to be a good "fit" for you. We've been with both of the above mentioned carriers, we like things about both carriers and if we could combine them we think we would have THE perfect carrier.

We would have to call it "The Fed Up Cat"

 

[greg334]

Sorry Dave, Dave, Steve and others but I have to agree with bernieh48.

I am not posting this to bash FedEx, it has to do with informing people of my experience. Seeing Phil is too lofty to have any of this happen, I find some of his comments are well out of touch maybe?

Here goes......

1 - I got stuck in the west, it wasn't that I wanted to get home after 8 weeks, it was I needed to. I lined up a couple loads and was given a number of excuses why they refused to help. Julewray made a point here on EO that she goes on on a load board and picks a load and gets FedEx involved to get the load on her truck. I been told that they don't do this, so it must be a form of favoritism. So I asked them a few weeks ago about this when they called me and they said "we do not allow our contractors to find loads for themselves". I also asked why are some saying it is possible and they said "we do not allow our contractors to find loads for themselves" and then added "there are no exceptions".... Oh really, no exceptions? I got back home, 4 weeks later - all 12 weeks out west should have been very busy being the only truck in a few hundred miles, but FedEx seems not to look for loads even if they land in their lap.

2 - I did get birthday cards from my favorite CC, who left because they were too honest. I did get a good morning or good evening with two exceptions. What I got tired of is people picking up the phone and not identifying themselves, like they expect you to accept them as the authority at the company. The other thing is as I mentioned before is they don't keep notes and there have been a lot of times where I repeated a problem or situation 5 or 6 times.

3 - When I ended up in the hospital, I didn't hear from them at all. I called my wife when I reached the emerguancy room, telling her as much as I could but told her I would call her later - don't worry. Well she worried a lot, pulled the emerguency sheet out and called FedEx to track me down. When she called, she ended up talking to someone who refused to help. She had to argue with FedEx and it took some time for them to get off their a**. Now I would expect a lot more, like someone come by and see if I was alright, with 4 other contractors (2 were vans) in the area, they could have done something like that but no. I know that another contractor ended up in the hospital, falling off a dock if I remember and FedEx sent three people to check up on him. It must be I wasn't a favorite? When I got released, the first call I made was to FedEx and had to explain everything that happened, from the doctor's instructions to where I would be sitting for the next 30 hours - all while still in a lot of pain and all the time getting very agitated from the fact that the dispatcher didn't get what the problem was. She seem to not care at all and I was hurting too much to care about her. I didn't hear squat from FedEx the following day, I feel I should have. On Monday, I called to go back into service and asked specific questions, like what do I have to have to get back into service because I was given morphine and other heavy drugs and told I needed a doctors release and that's all, but that wasn't all. I did ask if it needs to be faxed and I got no. Then I get a run, get almost to the run and I get a call from Safety, they wanted to put me out of service for another few days because they didn't get any doctors note, which I just lost it and asked this guy WTF is going on with the dispatch people when they can't get off their a** and ask questions. Well there is a lot more but the thing is that they didn't care, even when I brought this situation up when I went to green it was met with a blank stare. My wife on the other hand was p*ssed off, feels that they owe us an apology and should really take these things seriously.

4 - I was dispatched around in a busy express center. I called and asked and they told me that I was. So there was no assumption on my part. The reason was given that was clear that they needed to please a WG team. But after I left, I found out this happened a few times to me and happens to a lot of people.

 

[Bruno]

Sorry Gregg that your wife had to deal with that.

 

[bernieh48]

Sorry to hear about all that Greg but yes it doesn't surprise me at all. Guess like you said I wasn't one of their favorites either. I had the same if not similar happen to me and we were on a white glove run at the time. Had to go through emergency surgery in Joplin,MO and they got ****ed that my husband wanted to transfer the load. It was a short run that had all weekend to deliver so it's not like they didn't have time to find another truck. Tried telling my hubby he had to make the delivery and then come back to me on his dime. Then when my father couldn't reach us on our cell after the initial emergency call he called in to Fed's family line they had at the time and they actually told my father I had died. What a way to handle things. Sorry won't go into more detail but guess I wasn't on the favs list either. lol

 

[davekc]

It is amazing how this stuff starts to surface after a period of time.

 

[Bruno]

OMG, I'm sorry your family had to deal with that. FedEx has done alot of good things to us and our drivers over the years. I would have talked to Virginia about that.