Yup, everyone I talked to is 5% at the most. You can check out these peoples web page for ideas and forms to fill out. I contacted 4 of these places and they all failed right off the bat.


http://www.personaldispatcher.com/

 

I have dealt with one dispatcher up in Canada who seems pretty good.

He books me a good load for a fee then won't tell me how to pay him.

Dr. Rankinstein Dispatch Service or something like that. I think he dispatches one truck successfully then celebrates by getting totally sheeet faced on Molson, watches Terrance and Philip re-runs then forgets who the driver was.

 

I don't think it would be profitable at 2%. That would only be $40 for $3,000 of freight booked. Perhaps that is why some of these people aren't doing a very good job. Either they are not charging enough to do a good job or must have too many owners in order to make it profitable for them, but at that rate they are unable to do a good job. In order to provide a quality service the provider must charge enough to make a fair profit for his time. On the other hand, the buyer or user of the service must feel that they are receiving a good value for what is charged. The Atlanta outfit has little incentive to produce if you are paying him $500/month regardless of his productivity. That is why I think percentage is better. If the dispatcher produces he makes money. If not the owner doesn't pay anything.


Thanks for the website, Steve. I will check it out.

Several of you mentioned that some of these dispatch services failed. I am curious as to how they failed? What do you think they did wrong? What could be improved to make it better for you? What would you like to see in a dispatch service? Is there something you could have done to help the dispatch service do a good job for you? I am just trying to see what some of these other services may have done wrong or what could have been done to make it work. I really appreciate all of your input.

 

GMAN, it would be $60.

 

Here is my feedback: The ones I was looking at using could not find higher rates than what I could find myself and they could not find loads in the lanes I wanted to stay in. Another pet peeve was that they would call me on short notice when I had already booked the entire week by myself and at a higher rate than what they found. For example,I had already booked a load to SC for 1.50 a mile and booked another load 40 miles away in SC coming right back to TX for 1.75 a mile. I also found another load going to Mi and coming back next week for 1.60 and 1.72 a mile.THEY had found a load going from TX to Denver,Co. for 1.54 a mile and another one coming back to San Antonio for 1.42. :roll: IF I am going to pay for their service I would expect them to be ahead of me and finding rates HIGHER than what I can find myself. So far my main difficulty is getting freight out of TX when I want to leave home. I could find loads from TX to Denver for 1.60 a mile all day long. :lol:

 

Imagine that, a cheap service doing a cheap job :shock: I don't know how you can say GMAN is too expensive when what you're comparing him to admittedly sucks. Anyone can find a cheap deal, few can recognize the valuable deal. What if GMAN dispatched you for 10% and at the end of the day, your take-home wasn't any better than you could have done yourself...bad deal?

 

Oops. ops: Thanks for catching that, Allan. I was in a hurry when I did those calculations.

 

I'm going to guess you have a hell of a lot of contacts, correct?

Mostly for flat/stepdeck?

Do you have any good Canadian contacts? I wouldn't be able to haul point to point in the states. But I love hauling international freight.

 

It would have to be ABOVE my take-home net. I would give 20-30% and just lease my truck onto Gman if he had consistent 3.00 or 4.00 a mile freight .I wasn't comparing Gman to anything. I was merely stating my experience with the previous dispatch services that I have tried to use and giving people a heads-up on which dispatch services to stay away from.

 

G-man...something I am sure you have considered...having a handfull of trucks that you provide dispatch services for...increases the size of available deckspace you can offer to a potential "new" customer.

Gives you a leg up on getting those orders you would otherwise not be eligible for!