Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/319866
50 COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | JUNE 2014 to director of customer service, where she managed a new set of teams then known as appointment setters and customer service representatives. She gave appointment setters a new title – utilization analysts – and a new toolset that showed them the value of what they were doing and how it impacted metrics that were important to the company. CSRs also got a new title – customer relationship analysts – and new visibility and planning tools to gauge the impact they had on fl eet profi tability. After these and other changes proved successful, Celadon promoted Howard to vice president of customer service. In April 2013, she helped Celadon launch a new career ladder in the customer service department, where CRAs can be promoted to senior CRAs – where they mentor and coach their peers – as well as assistant manager and managing director. Celadon also began new outreach efforts to college students to visit the offi ce or join its internship program and experience the "high-value" jobs in the company's customer service department. Balancing the network Celadon recently went live with a new strategic planning tool called Load Analyzer that helps it take a methodi- cal, planned approach while respond- ing quickly to new opportunities at hand. Load Analyzer summarizes supply and demand information for today and fi ve days in the future for each market, or area, in Celadon's network. The supply columns in the Load Analyzer screen show the number of trucks, trucks short and trucks due in each market for each day. The soft- ware also recommends what empty trucks to bring from surrounding markets to address immediate capac- ity needs. One demand column shows the number of loads booked in the area without trucks. It also gives recom- mendations for what customers and loads to solicit to move trucks out of the market and into areas where they are needed to satisfy customer lane commitments. The tool also shows CRAs and other users the operating ratios of loads as well as other profi tability and service metrics to prioritize their calls to customers to solicit freight. Howard describes Load Analyzer to CRAs and other users as "your crystal ball for telling you exactly what is happening with your network so that you can plan accordingly." Before implementing Load Ana- lyzer in November 2013, Celadon's customer service department had a strong approach for soliciting loads, Howard says, but the approach was "take whatever we could get." If the company had 15 extra trucks in the Dallas area, its CRAs would get on the phone and fi nd loads to move those trucks. The profi tability of those moves was an afterthought and created another problem of landing excess capacity into markets. "They didn't necessarily care where they were tak- ing trucks," she says. "They just had to move the trucks out of Dallas since that was their job." Moving trucks from Dallas to markets like Arizona often would result in contacting a broker to fi nd a backhaul. "That didn't make sense," Howard says. "If South Carolina was overbooked by 10 loads, that's really where we needed to drive a truck. Load Analyzer fi xes all of those prob- lems for us, which is why it's so great." Some of the results Celadon has achieved since implementing Load Analyzer include a 49 percent reduc- tion in brokered loads, year over year, in February; a reduction of layovers by 67.5 percent; and an increase in load solicitations by 30 percent since November 2013, with a 15 percent higher success rate. Paying for performance Every Monday morning, customer service managers get a report that shows the performance for each CRA during the past week. Metrics in the report include the number of load solicitations, loaded miles and aver- age operating ratio of loads. High performers are recognized, while lower performers are coached for improvement. Going forward, Celadon will evaluate all analysts in its customer service department on how their performance measures up to goals in order to reward them more objec- tively. Quarterly and annual perfor- mance reviews will be "100 percent data-driven," Howard says, with pay increases based on merit. "I think that is the next wave for how we will elevate the department," she says. "You control your fate. Per- formance will be rewarded." With advanced technology and oth- er customer service changes, Celadon is following the pattern established by Russell 30 years ago even as the scale and complexity of the business continues to grow. The company is attracting young talent, taking a methodical approach and responding quickly to new opportunities. CC J I N N O VATO R S profi les carriers and fl eets that have found innovative ways to overcome trucking's challenges. If you know a carrier that has displayed innovation, contact Jeff Crissey at jcrissey@ccjmagazine.com or 800-633-5953. After changes implemented at Celadon by Lauren Howard proved suc- cessful, the company pro- moted her to vice president of customer service.