The freight industry has remained seemingly unchanged for a long time, with many professionals working together to move freight from point A to point B. At any given time you have the shipper, receiver, driver, and—of course—the dispatcher all coordinating to make the shipment a success. The dispatcher has traditionally been responsible for organizing the driver’s schedules, keeping detailed records, and closely monitoring the driver’s hours and any potential issues that might come up on the road. In many ways, the dispatcher is the glue that keeps the entire operation together.
Your career as a dispatcher will involve keeping many logistical considerations in mind, and could sometimes be a lot to juggle in such a fast-paced industry. However, all that could change with the introduction of a new start-up called Loadsmart. Read on to discover how this company could change your dispatcher career and job responsibilities forever.
What Does Loadsmart Do? What Students in Dispatch Training Need to Know
Loadsmart is a brand new tech company that aims to provide on-demand shipping services to businesses. It works in a manner similar to flight booking sites like Kayak.com and Expedia.ca. Instead of flights, though, customers compare prices between many different carriers to choose the right one for their needs.
Shippers can use the service to enter their load requirements and be matched with a carrier that will get their goods where they need to go. What makes Loadsmart a little different is that it provides instant and guaranteed pricing on most of its routes, which is part of its major success thus far. Loadsmart’s algorithms carefully calculate the cost of each route, and offers the price to the customer. If shipping costs end up going over the quoted price, Loadsmart—and not the carrier—eats up the extra cost, meaning that customers and carriers alike benefit from this new price quoting approach.
A process that once could require the dispatcher or carrier to communicate back and forth many times with a customer, is simplified and frees up more time for dispatchers to focus on scheduling drivers, monitoring traffic conditions, and maintaining fleet records. If Loadsmart continues to grow at this pace there’s a good chance students enrolled in a dispatch course will want to use this service throughout their careers.
Pros With Dispatcher Training Might See the Industry Altered Forever
Loadsmart is growing rapidly due to its easy-to-use platform and instantly quoted prices. However, that’s not the only reason why this new service is popular with dispatchers.
Professionals with dispatch training oversee many important tasks including scheduling, tracking, and managing loads. To help make life a little easier for these valued professionals, Loadsmart has free software that allows dispatchers to live track loads, message drivers, and even measure driver performance and other analytics. This service makes dispatchers’ lives much easier by keeping the tracking process all in one place.
The company now has thousands of trucks registered and signed up to carry freight and has facilitated over a hundred booked loads. It still hasn’t yet made its way to Canada, but if current trends continue, it just might become an important part of your future dispatching career.
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