Just to be clear, lrtexpedite, when I say we get to the shipper several hours early if we can, I mean get to the area, not to the shipper's facility itself. As a general rule, we do not arrive early, except for a few minutes early so as to not be late.
That is because many of the shippers we serve are very precise about their pick up times. We have some that have the truck arrive first and then start preparing their freight in a process that may take several hours.
We have others that arrange crews of people to load, supervise, check, double check and handle the freight. When a shipper is bringing in a half dozen people to load freight, their schedules all matter and it is vital that the truck not show up early to screw up the rhythm. Sometimes the people who show up at the dock have flown in from other states.
Still others ship freight that are part of projects in which work is going on in several locations. They have check lists as do project members in other parts of the country. One of the items is the truck arriving for the pick up and maybe an inspection of the truck. If you arrive early, they have to deal with you out of sequence if for no other reason to tell you to go away or find you a place to park. Shippers like that do not like of interruption when a specific pick up time has been previously arranged for good reason.
I could list more such scenarios. The point is simply that in much of the White Glove work we do, arriving early is not a good thing, it can be a very bad thing. Experience has conditioned us to get close to the shipper hours and even days ahead of time when we can and to arrive just a few minutes before the pick up time.
For other expediters who serve other types of customers, it may make perfect sense to arrive an hour early or more as a matter of course. But as with so many other aspects of this business, one size does not fit all, and what is right for one may not be right for another.
