Thanks to all who responded to our September survey on brokers and their businesses. 137 of you completed the survey, and told us quite a bit about yourselves and how we can help you grow your business.
(And be sure to take this month’s survey, too. October’s topics: Policing carrier safety and factoring. Complete the survey, and you could win donuts and coffee for your crew!)
We learned, for example, that the Internet is just as important for you today as the telephone, and that fax machines--while still an important tool for the broker--are slowly losing out to load boards and electronic files. You rated these common broker tools in order of importance:
- Internet/Web and Telephone (tied)
- Load board(s)
- Fax machine
- Transportation management software (TMS)
- Carrier compliance software
- Rolodex
Other tools mentioned: Employee training ("it's critical," said one respondent). Mileage and accounting software also showed up on some brokers' lists, as did instant messaging services, mobile phones, and PDAs.
One broker, however, summed it up quite nicely: "Good people are the best tools! You can have all of the above but if you don't have good people it does you no good."
35 percent of the brokers taking our survey move 25 or fewer loads per week, while about 7 percent move 301 loads or more. Nearly 65 percent of firms taking the survey have 5 or fewer employees; another 29 percent have between six and 25 employees.
Brokers were very vocal about the problems they faced, and two stood out in particular: Finding good carriers and staying ahead of expenses.
Despite the fact that freight volumes have dropped recently, and carrier availability is certainly better than it was a couple of years go, brokers taking the survey still told us that "finding high-quality carriers" is still their number-one problem.
Several cited issues with carrier commitments; "Too many accept the load and then come up with a reason for not doing it when the truth is they found a better load. Some actually admit this! This situation hurts my small business and makes me look very stupid to my customers!"
Bad brokers have created a reputation that's hard to overcome in some areas, said others, "Some shippers won't deal with brokers due to problems they've had in the past. I always take care of my customers even if I have to lose money," said one, "I'd like to get the word out to shippers everywhere not to judge all brokers the same way."
Related financial worries occupied the next two spots on brokers' "worst problems" list: Shrinking profit margins and coping with the rising costs of doing business. "There are," noted one broker, "fewer loads and trucks available." Others noted that shipper payments seem to be coming more slowly, which can affect the broker's carrier relationships as well. (For more on ways to smooth out cashflow issues, see a related article: "Can factoring make your business better?")
Another concern: The increasing global nature of the transportation business can make voice communications between driver and dispatcher difficult at times. Some brokers called for finding alternate ways to “make sure instructions are clearly understood.”
We also asked you to tell us what you’d change about a TransCore product, and you read our minds: Many of the 3sixty Freight Match features that brokers asked us for in this survey have been answered in our new version 1.2 release. (The survey closed before we launched Freight Match 1.2) For a closer look at some of those features, please see our newsletter article on Freight Match 1.2.
Brokers also made requests in other products, too. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be posting new information about how we’re answering those requests.
Thanks for your input!