Stuff happens, and it can happen at any time in the freight cycle, from before pick-up until after delivery.
So we are making a list of some of the more common snafu’s, with an explanation of the how and the why, and our advice on how to respond – which always includes CALL US. But every time we think we have the list finished, we encounter another unique situation, and we have to consider adding it to the list…
- Like the time the shipper loaded the truck, while the driver sat calmly at the shipper’s dock-side desk and ate the shipper’s home-made lunch.
- Or the time in Alabama when the driver asked for the freight destined to Ontario, CA (as in Canada), and the shipper loaded the freight destined to Ontario, CA (as in California).
- We also remember the driver who called a Fort Lauderdale warehouse to confirm his planned arrival the next morning, only to find the next morning that a hurricane had blown through in the night, and had flattened the warehouse.
- Or the shipper who called us to proudly report that they had loaded their LTL freight very quickly, because the driver had arrived visibly drunk, and they wanted rid of him (meaning, back on the highway) asap.
- And then there was the rush shipment of 2 large, and very expensive, wheeled stage lights, that just had to be in Philadelphia the next morning. The driver drove all night, arrived at the receiving area, opened the barn doors, untied the straps around the lights, and backed in toward the dock. But the access to the dock was down a ramp, and as soon as the trailer hit the slope, the lights rolled out the open doors and smashed to bits on the ground. And then the trailer wheels ran over the bits.
We’ll post the list soon, but if your headache du jour isn’t on the list, it just means it didn’t make the current hit parade – we have almost certainly encountered it before, and when you call us, we will help you sort it out.
And what happened in the actual situations described above?
- we sent the shipper a voucher for a complimentary dinner at a local restaurant for he and his wife.
- the vendor was able to re-sell the Ontario, California freight to a purchaser in Ontario, Canada a few days later, and the carrier agreed to pay the extra Customs costs incurred.
- we worked with a local cartage company who had a warehouse outside the path of the hurricane, and were able to redirect the truck that same morning.
- we alerted the carrier, who was able to get the driver out of the truck at his next pick-up location, and made him take a day to sleep it off (the freight was delivered a day late, and the driver was fired when he arrived back at his terminal).
- the carrier wrote a cheque the next day for the total replacement value of the destroyed lights.
We try our very best to anticipate problems, but they never-the-less do occur. And when problems do occur, we ask that you measure us on our response – are we as relentless about dealing with issues as we are with everything else?
We think we are, and so also do the shipper’s wife, the ON CA vendor, the wind-whipped driver, the impaired driver’s previous employer, and the owner of the road-kill lights.
When our list is finished, it will address the following types of operational headaches: