Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/566087
30 | Overdrive | September 2015 Detention détente White says, "there's no arguing about whether the truck's there or not" at a shipper or receiver location. "It's indisput- able." They're also lucky in the turn that has taken place in recent years among their direct non-broker customers toward better acceptance of the need to compen- sate the fleet for undue load and unload times. "My direct customers rarely hold us up," White says. "And if it is a situation where there was a production issue and they have to hold up my truck, they never argue about paying detention." The same applies at the relatively few problem receiver customers of those ship- pers. One of White's prominent direct customers ships to many facilities, but if one of those receivers holds up an Old Time truck, White's shipper customer "doesn't just say, 'You have to take it up with them,' " he says. Rates in Old Time's contracts with regular customers specify $50 an hour after two hours as the detention standard. Company drivers are paid $15 to $20 hourly if Old Time collects any deten- tion, and leased owner-operators get 75 percent of all accessorial items, or $37.50 hourly. The rate was determined somewhat arbitrarily years ago, White says. "My dad and I were sitting around talking about this the other day," he said in August. The figure is "just an arbitrary figure from the 1980s" when Bo White started the busi- ness. "In my mind, a truck needs to gener- ate $100 to $150 an hour in revenue." With the tight capacity situation in the truckload market, White and company have considered approaching customers about boosting the detention rate to a more realistic level, he says. The fleet's already aggressive on bro- kered loads where it sees its biggest prob- lems, given often unfamiliar load/unload locations. White told his dispatch team to tell brokers, "You've got one hour, and it's $100 an hour after that" for detention. The decision to get tougher in negotia- tions was driven by situations like a recent one where a receiver couldn't figure out who ordered the freight and delayed one of White's drivers from unloading. "The truck was there for two hours. At that point, I called the broker, and the broker said two hours wasn't excessive." After more time went by and the broker resisted assisting with the situation, White threat- ened to pull the truck and told the broker, "Right's right and wrong's wrong. I don't want another load from you." A broker who fails in his middleman's role, White suggests, is not worth the heartache. Lack of clear "communication is still the number one issue that causes breakdown," he says. He's fortunate to have open lines of communications with core customers, but others need improvement. One tends to ignore trucks' appointment times as they arrive. "Do they get a warm and fuzzy feeling seeing trucks stacked up in the driveway? If consum- ers had to go through a similar expe- rience going to the store and waiting in lines like these, those stores would quickly go out of business." This old racecar bumper hangs in the rafters of Old Time Express' shop at its Tennessee headquarters, testament to fleet founder Bo White's relation- ship-building during the 1990s. Cathy Ludwig of Sport Rack Automotive was, essentially, the shipper that gave White a commitment of potential business when he was transitioning to his own authority from an operation where he was leased to a small carrier. When Sport Rack went out of business, Old Time diver- sified lanes across the Midwest and elsewhere and secured some direct freight in and around Hartsville. Todd Dills Todd Dills The double-edged sword of appointment times Some shipper/receiver facilities are reported to be moving from first-come first-served approaches to appoint- ment-based systems for loading and unloading. Old Time Express' Mark White notes that such systems are great if you're right on time and the facility keeps its appointment ducks in a row. You might hate the appointment system if "you get held up somewhere else" or, God forbid, you're early. Massachusetts-based owner-oper- ator Rick Ash posted an anecdote to Facebook that illustrates the bene- fits of professionalism in mitigating conflicts in such instances. Ash, who's taken driver image improvement to heart, wears a shirt and tie when he's working. "I walked into my consign- ee this morning at 6 a.m. to make a delivery," he wrote. "I knew that my appointment was for 11 a.m., but I was really, really hoping they might take me early." The receiver noted the 11 a.m. appointment time when the man in charge happened to walk by. As Ash told it, "He said, 'I'm sorry, sir, our office doesn't open until 8 a.m.' I said, 'That's OK, I'm just here to make a delivery at your loading dock.' " Said the man in charge: "If this man cares enough to show up here in a shirt and tie, let's get him in a door." Do shippers and receivers get a warm and fuzzy feeling seeing trucks stacked up in the driveway? If consumers had to go through a similar experience going to the store and waiting in lines like these, those stores would quickly go out of business. — Mark White, Old Time Express operations manager