Running a trucking business can be tricky.Whether you are a small independent trucker or running a family business or a multinational corporation, there are bound to be times when things are not moving so smoothly or going as planned within your trucking business. This can be due to driver absence, vehicle maintenance or breakdown, or due to lack of work. However,with a bit of forethought, you can make these little hiccups few and far between.
1 Plan ahead
To keep your business humming along, you will have to think ahead. Days or weeks of bad planning could mean that you spend time with little or no work to do, which will have the knock-on effect of a lack of money being paid to your business.
Making sure you are using a load board facility to gather shipping work can not only be a convenient means of gaining work but will encourage you to book your trucking work in advance. If you continue to use the facility regularly, it will be a great way to provide you with work so you can plan out your schedules accordingly.To ensure a steady flow of work and optimize your trucking schedules, consider using platforms like truck loads from Shiply, which can provide consistent access to shipping jobs and help in maintaining a full and efficient workload.
2 Use cell phone Apps
Using cell phoneapps to organize and run your business makes sense when you spend so much of your time in your vehicle.
For instance,some apps will help you with the following:
Workload scheduling
Schedule your work and manage your workload. This will ensure that you stay organized without having to be in front of your laptop or computer.
Delivery routes
GPS navigation will ensure that you stay on course to make your deliveries, even when there is trouble on the roads ahead. You will be informed of any last-minute route changes so you know to follow diversions, as well as be provided with an estimated time of arrival.
Access to customer information
With certain software packages, you can stay connected to your office’s intranet system allowing you access to all of your customer database and their contact details. This can be essential when providing excellent customer experience as you will be able to inform them should their shipment be delayed while on the road.
There are signal boosters you can buy to ensure that you are never without a signal while you are on the road,and this can make it far easier to stay in contact with the world in general, should you encounter some trouble along your journey.
3 Record and schedule vehicle maintenance
You need to keep a record of all the work carried out on your vehicles and schedule routine vehicle maintenance. Having a record of any work carried out will provide some fallback should a certain vehicle regularly require the same or similar repairs. At the same time,keeping to a maintenance schedule will relieve some of the unplanned bills you may have to pay when one of your vehicles breaks down or when you have to deal with the loss of valuable delivery time while the vehicle is in the garage.
