Freight tracking without check calls: a practical guide

Check calls are the tax every freight desk pays. Someone works down a list, calls or emails each carrier, types the answer into the TMS, and writes to the customer. Most of those calls end with the load on time. The few that matter get lost among the many that do not.

Trace's agent takes the list. It checks every load on schedule, chases the carrier when a load goes quiet, and tells your customer before they ask. Your team works the exceptions. This guide walks through what that looks like, with sample loads.

What the agent checks, and where it looks

Every load is checked at pickup, in transit and before delivery. The status comes from whatever sources the load has:

• Carrier systems. Carriers such as XPO, Estes, FedEx Freight, TForce Freight and Day & Ross connect through their APIs, so pickup, location and delivery update on the load as they happen.
• Tracking links from the carrier.
• ELD data from the truck.
• Check-ins by email, text and phone, from the agent's own inbox and phone line, when the other sources go quiet.

Each answer lands on the load's record, and the agent writes the same update back to the TMS you run, so the record and your system of record never tell two different stories.

When it chases

A load that goes quiet is often the first sign that something is wrong. When an update is missing, the carrier hears from the agent by email, text or phone. Nobody on your team has to notice the gap first.

Here is an example with a sample load. Say a shipper like Larchmont Millwork has a load moving from Concord, ON to Seattle, WAL-2499, with no update in three hours. The agent texts the driver at 2:40 PM. When the text goes unanswered, it calls the carrier's dispatch at 3:10 PM, and Larchmont hears at 4:00 PM either way. Every attempt, answered or not, stays on the record for the next person who picks the load up.

How customers hear first

The customer's question is always the same: where is my truck. The agent answers it before it is asked. Updates and new ETAs go out on the schedule you set, and right away when a load runs late, with a live tracking link, in the channel the customer prefers.

What goes out on its own depends on the mode you set for that customer:

• In Shadow, the delay is logged and nothing is sent.
• In Supervised and Autopilot, the update is drafted and waits for your approval.
• In God mode, the update goes out on its own, inside your rules.

An example, again with sample companies. A shipper like Kestrel Outdoor has a truckload moving from Chicago to Winnipeg, WAL-2476. An ELD ping puts it near Fargo, ND, ahead of plan, with its Friday delivery window still safe. In this example Kestrel's truckload freight runs in God mode, so the update and a live tracking link go out without anyone on your team writing them.

Loads that cross the border are tracked on the same record. On the sample load WAL-2482 from Montreal to Boston, the crossing at Highgate Springs lands as an update at 10:55 AM, and the customer can hear about it at that step too.

Your customer should hear about a delay from you, before they have to ask.

What an exception looks like

Most loads need nothing. The ones that do rise to the top of the desk, late and at-risk loads first. When the agent flags an exception, it comes with the context attached and what it suggests, and it works from what it already knows about each location.

Here is an example with sample companies. Say a load is delivering to a receiver like Harbor Supply in Tacoma. On a call on Tuesday, Harbor's receiver mentioned that the dock closes at 3 PM, and the agent saved that to the Tacoma location with the call as its source. On delivery day, the carrier's new ETA is 3:30 PM. The flag that reaches your rep reads like this:

• The carrier's new ETA is 3:30 PM, after Harbor's dock closes at 3 PM.
• The sources: the carrier's update, and Tuesday's call with the receiver.
• The suggestion: call receiving for the first slot the next morning, and draft the update to the customer.

Your rep says yes or picks another plan. The agent makes the call, saves the new appointment, and the customer update follows the mode. The rep spent a minute on the one load that needed them, instead of an afternoon on the ones that did not.

Setting it up

Tracking is a good first job to hand over, because it runs beside whatever you use today. A few things make it work well:

• Connect your inbox and your TMS, so every update lands on the loads you already keep.
• Set how often each customer hears from you, and in which channel.
• Pick a mode for each customer and type of freight, from Shadow to God mode.
• Upload the procedures your team follows on exceptions, so the agent works to them.

When the agent is unsure what to do on a load, it asks you with the context attached. When someone on your team corrects an update, the correction is remembered for the next one.

Book a demo and bring a week of your loads, and we will track them with you from pickup to the last update.