Salesmanship is a skill every motor carrier needs to master, regardless of whether they’re a single pony owner/operator or a motor carrier with 30 or more trucks. It’s imperative for success.

What are you selling?

1. Communication
2. Say what you’ll do; do what you say
3. No Surprises
4. Anticipate
5. Honesty and Truth
6. Safety
7. Quality, Quality, Quality
8. Exceed Expectations
9. Clean  and Neat 
10. Care 

The idea here is to provide consistent, top-notch service to your customers. Your customers are anyone to whom you provide a service and from whom you expect to receive revenue. This includes shippers, receivers, and brokers.

To get a good perspective of what is the best approach to sell yourself and your company, “Walk a mile in the other man’s shoes.” Looking at what you’d require of a trucking company contracted to haul loads for you is the best way to determine your customer’s needs.

The cornerstone of this approach is Communication. Without an excellent transmission of information from the trucker to the customer, everything else within your service plan comes to a screeching halt.

The next stone in line of importance is Say what you’ll do; do what you say. Nothing can destroy a business relationship quicker than promising an action will occur and then it doesn’t. The other side of this coin is, don’t promise more than you are capable of delivering.

No Surprises means the trucking company doesn’t let the unexpected surprise the customer by not communicating. There are always situations and events over which your driver and motor carrier have no control. When one of these situations occurs which is going to affect a promise, it immediately needs to be communicated to all parties concerned. They may not be happy with what’s happened, but it gives them opportunity and time to make necessary adjustments to their plan.

Anticipate potential problems and have solutions for these problems ready for your customer if they should occur. Since we live in an unpredictable world, your best preparation is to be ready for worst-case scenario.

Honesty and Truth are virtues that will always work toward a win-win hauling experience. If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember what you said. No matter how bad it seems, when you explain in an honest and truthful manner what happened, a complete picture and accurate details will make the situation easier to handle and move more quickly to resolution.

To complete this rock-solid customer service foundation, we must never forget Safety. Not much else can sour a customer’s attitude towards a trucking company more than an avoidable, preventable mishap. Although the shipper may never see your driver doing a pre-trip or post-trip inspection, or constant and consistent in-transit load and equipment observations, or the vigilance in defensive safe driving habits, these activities ensure the on-time arrival of the customer’s product or goods at destination.

And we all know a foundation is nothing more than a base from which to build. To really build the proper customer service plan, you must continue placing stone after stone on this foundation, thus building the walls of success.

To set you apart from the crowd, there are additional components necessary for a successful customer service plan. The idea here is to go beyond satisfied customers and create raving fans.

Quality, Quality, Quality. Think in terms of creating, doing, and providing quality in every facet of your operation.

Exceed your customers’ Expectations. Don’t just meet your shippers’ needs; go the extra miles to create more value in your services, making you more valuable to them.

Clean and Neat (and Uniform) Your drivers and your equipment meeting these criteria give customers the confidence of knowing they picked the right company to haul their goods. First impressions are lasting, but if your trucking company doesn’t maintain or improve on that first impression, you will eventually be sent searching for other loads. And hauling sailboat fuel just doesn’t pay.

Show you Care about the customer’s load, time, personnel, property, and money by watching all the details. Enlist your drivers in the following: how the load is secured; being there when you’re expected, being courteous with both the shipper’s and receiver’s employees, keeping off the grass, just kissing the dock with your trailer, and being aware that mistakes, delays and accidents cost everyone.

Have the entire load be Uneventful. The only events that happen are the ones planned and known in advance. Have a deliberate routine and follow it.

Those walls, which you’ve built stone by stone, will house your thriving, successful, profitable trucking business and have shippers knocking at your door to haul for them.

Good loads and good roads, everyone.

Timothy Brady
©  2009