Phil, do you work for FedEx?
OK really after the day I had yesterday, I have to revise my comments. This by the way applies to two companies, not just one. This may sound that I am angry, I am not – I am just using it for effect.
Training dispatchers to be better and get them on the road for at least a month or two without help or favoritism. They have to produce revenue and learn the system before they can dispatch. An alternative is to offer some contractors who want to stay home for what ever reason and who can show their intelligence on using a computer and a phone a telecommuting position as a dispatcher (there is a huge cost savings to the company with these types of programs). Dispatchers should dispatch, they should know that a restricted road means restricted road, they should know that Hazmat is Hazmat and what all those questions mean and they should know the basic like the correlation between fuel cost and operating cost for the contractors, meaning don't even consider telling a driver that what they are asking for is more than what they are charging the customer – too bad, take it out of the dispatchers pay to make up the difference when that comment comes up.
Use the computers as they are intended to be used - put the f******g notes into the f******g computer instead of having me repeat things 5 times or call back to find out no one bothered to put the info into the computer and now I have to start over with the issue and what has been done to solve the problem for the customer or ask again what I need to do.
Go back to the contractor coordinator (cc) program as it was when I arrived but when you change something, communicate it to the contractor before it happens. This system now is a mess and I don't know who I am talking to half the time and no one keeps notes (see my note above). ccs' need to be there to deal with us, not be multitasking dispatchers. If the company is concern about cost justification, put them to work doing things that don’t require being on the phone, being away from their desk but something like processing paper work or stuffing envelopes.
Give US, the contractors a functioning and up to date organization chart with extensions and full names. When I ask for X and there are 4 Xs, I have to wait for the person who answers the phone to ask those 4 Xs who talked to me while I need an answer NOW. Every contractor should know who people are and how to get in touch with everyone from the top down. AND do not allow anyone outside the dispatcher to answer the phone, I have one person who I ask to check me into my home express center because of the problems along I75 and I never get checked in, she should be fired for lying to me and the others who talked to her.
I would like to know who the person is who thought about this abortion of using T-Chek and the head of the conversion project, they should be fired. I bet that t-chek went to FedEx, not the other way around and FedEx bought into this. Right now I have too many problems with it, I am incurring more fees (I lost track of them) than I ever had with Comdata, like 12 times the amount, my ATM pin number all of a sudden didn’t work any more, no one can really answer the question why I can’t use the card at Walmart (it was to be a direct replacement for Comdata but Walmart, Krogers and paypal all refused to honor the card as they did with Comdata) which means I am using ATM cash for everything and why is it I have to go through two points to get problems solved. I DONâ€T HAVE TIME TO SPEND CHASING ANSWERS OR SOLUTIONS. In the future (this is for any company reading this), I would highly recommend that conversions like this should be treated as one FedEx customer does things, with arrogance – that company is Pfizer. On serious projects like this, they tell the vendor what they want and how they want it otherwise they don’t get the business. So the company needs to gather requirements, like you go to the comdata site and print off the site with financial info and use the services a few times documenting things you wonder about, then ask the contractors what they think of a change and present the info you already have and ask them these questions (remember company the contractors are the real customer of the services, not you), DO NOT depend on any phantom drivers council for answers, which means the ccs’ need to get off their a** and on the phone to call the contractors. Don’t send out a letter or survey or put into the DVD because a lot of us don’t go back home often enough to read our mail – CALL THEM. Then you see who else is on the radar screen with the same services you are looking for and then you go to them but don’t ask what they can do for you, you tell them what you want. If they want the business, they will accommodate you, not the other way around. If I was in charge of the project, I would have done all of what I mentioned and I would have selected randomly contractors out of the fleet who could participate in the project, not special people. It would take 4 months working on the issues like the website presentation, remember many contractors are not computer savvy and really need quick access with different reports and the money flow issues like debit card vs. checks vs. fuel access. Once this is done, I hand the requirements over to the companies I selected to provide the service, I would wait until they present the changes we would wanted and then I would sit down on a conference call with those randomly selected contractors and go through the site and money flow that the company had given us and then get the company to correct things before any consideration can be considered to go live. This seems to work everywhere else, why not here?
Oh by the way, I would do the same with other projects, like Drivertek – randomly select the contractors in the fleet for the project.
AND FINALLY
MORE SALES STAFF IN THE FIELD. SELL OUR SERVICES NOT EVERYONE ELSES
