Dispatcher skills. Professional skills. Having started working as a dispatcher, you’re sure to communicate with the agents, brokers and various insurance company representatives daily. Building up to a correct behavior pattern will help raise your success into dispatchers’ business. If you provide your client with a high-quality service, you will be able to set up a good solid business relations creating a decent reputation for your business.
A competent approach to letter processing from business correspondence you receive and ensuring that the contents from the received letters are processed in the correct and the most efficient way also helps to upgrade your rating and value from different clients. In addition, good time management and increase in profitability and productivity of the company are directly related to the success of your business.
Dispatcher skills. Almost every dispatcher works with a client using a cell phone or email and a fax. There is always a possibility that you may never meet physically with your business partners. Therefore, professionalism in dealing with them is very important which will allow you to create a good first impression. Voice message on the phone should definitely be polite and respectful regardless of the attitude of a business partner towards you.
When composing emails, you should use only formal language and appropriate grammar creating each sentence carefully and legibly. At the same time, swear words should be completely excluded. Simply remain original and professional. You should be assertive at work, but do not mix it up with aggressiveness if one company or another does not manage and tackle issues in a professional manner. And its representative treat you without due respect, but simply engage you in arguments over telephone, then, it’s better to remove such partner from the list of business contacts.
Creating relationship in the business: If you want to get productive results in a business relationship and fast processing of your request, then you should develop reading and oral communication skills. It is also important to remember that the parties involved in the business relations should respect each other cooperating on the basis of mutual understanding and complete trust. This means that in your work, you have to meet all the conditions of the business agreement fairly and honestly.
Again, having an unpleasant business experience with a company that is not able to follow business ethics, you should refuse to cooperate with it. But you should not immediately reject a brokerage firm from which you could not get a clear and concrete answer about the problem you’re interested in. It is likely that you just came across an experienced employee who is not sufficiently prepared to provide you with the assistance. In such situations, you simply should not waste precious time trying to explain the situation to the employee because he still will not provide you with the appropriate support.
This usually happens on the weekends or after the completion of the standard working hours. This is due to the fact that the most brokerage firm try to keep working around the clock but those brokers who provide support in nonworking hours are less aware of all the nuances of your cargo than your agent. In this case, you should postpone the call to the next working day when it’s possible to contact your personal broker and solve the problem in an appropriate way if the situation allows.
In competitive transport industry, maintaining friendly business relationship with the brokers can create a good condition for a business when there is a shortage of cargo or the rates are low. We recommend making a list of those firms, brokers, including their contact information with whom you have developed a good relationship.
Over time you will see that this list will play a very important role in your business. When specifying financial details in negotiation, for example, freight rates, issue of wages and additional payments, you should follow the whole situation closely scrolling it in your head to avoid financial mistake. Owing to the latter, dispatchers with a little experience may lose a lot of important time or a valuable cargo.
For example, the price for drivers waiting for a cargo is from $100 to $250 although it may always seem to the driver that such valuable waiting time costs more, and therefore will ask for it which ranges from $400 to even $800. At the same time, it is pointless to dispute with a broker in such situation because he will not pay you more than the standard rate at the current time. Treat the state of affairs cleanly, calmly. You will treat the reality in the business-like manner and will have the opportunity to work, keep working with them on subsequent jobs.
It is important to remember that only by turning the wheels of the truck you can receive an income. Establishing and maintaining good business relationship is also directly dependent on the provision of the quality service. So drivers who provide excellent service over time can earn not only an excellent reputation, but also a decent amount of money. The main element of a quality service include picking up, lifting and timely delivery of cargo based on all delivery instructions and making the prescribed calls, checking calls, and reporting all unplanned delays.
Dispatcher’s Time Management: Looking for attractive cargo may take much time. If you are a dispatcher of your own truck, then you need to combine daily driving works with the usual dispatcher’s employment. As a result, you can develop your own systems that suits your schedule best. In addition, attention should be paid to the time zones, delivery schedule, and your personal working hours. We recommend you to make a plan for stops up for the morning of each day and subsequent days so that you can get well acquainted with a good posted on the online message boards, as well as make the necessary phone calls.
The latter might be performed in the range between 8 and 11am according to brokers local time, because at this time, all employees are in their workspaces performing the tasks prescribed for them. From our experience, we can safely see that the most of the cargo bookings are done before the lunch. Calls in the afternoon often looks like some kind of a courtesy visits which – within which you inform the broker or agent that your truck will be available at a specific time and the place. This will allow them to contact you if they have cargo the same day or the next morning.
By the way, in order to avoid costly downtime, lay overs as well as reduce the waiting time for loading, it is necessary to book for a cargo before the day of unloading. On average, it is unnecessary to begin searching for new cargos three days before the planned unloading of the cargo is being transported. In this case, even if you feel to find the attractive offer on the first day, you will be able to use two spare days to call your brokers in order to get offer.