Real-World Crisis Calls In Freight Brokerage | Final Mile 145

Nate Cross & Ben Kowalski answer your freight brokering questions and discuss:

⚠️ Handling carrier threats professionally

✅ Building defensible carrier vetting

📈 Responding to rising rate pushback

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Transcript

Welcome And Q&A Ground Rules

SPEAKER_01 0:00

All right, welcome back for another edition of the Final Mile. This is our listener QA session. So if you have a question that you want us to answer, send us a message, leave a comment or um whatever you want in the YouTube section there or fill out the form on our website. We can't get to everyone's questions. We've also got the Freight Broker Basics course. If you're looking for a full educational option, you get a lot of your questions answered in there. And uh our Facebook group. People are always you know conversing in there. So um check out the sponsors, help support this channel. Let's hop into it,

Threats Over Payment Disputes

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Ben. First one actually had this happen. Um, what should a broker do when a carrier is threatening self-harm or violence over a payment dispute? So, dude, I've had I've seen this.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Never you've never had that happen? Never, and I've never even heard of this one. So I'm just curious what happened.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

I'll give you a couple examples of like uh couple? Oh yeah, oh yeah. So like we're talking like um everything from we can't pay you anything because you broke down five miles from the pickup and we had to repower it and we lost money. Like, there's just no money to pay you. We can't, right? And it was your fault. Um, all the way to like disputing, um, you know, late fees and stuff like that, all the way to like had one recently where the we're gonna pay the carrier, but the pay is just temporarily frozen. They're on in a quick pay, we're like, we can't because there might be a claim on it. Like, you you know, you're is uh the freight was supposed to arrive at like a negative 10 degrees and the BOL showed like 12, like positive 12 degrees. So it's like 22 degrees higher. We're like, look, it's probably fine because it's frozen, but we need to make sure the customer's receiver is going to accept it with that on the BOL. So give us a couple days, we'll get it worked out. Um, like in that instance, the guy's like, he's like, This is why this is what this, you know, this is why people that I go crazy and have guns do crazy things, and we're like, what? Like sending like nasty threats, like, and then he's like, you know what? Just keep your money, you thief. I'm gonna send the devil rat after you and your family, like crazy stuff like that. But dude, I had um Oh, I've heard violence. Sorry, I thought this was all self-harm and the guy was talking about killing himself. Like, he's like, I'm like basic, oh yeah, like this is why what people do, they're crazy with they have guns, and like it's like I'm just gonna remove myself from this planet in the situation. Um yeah, I mean I've like the threats, yeah, but so where this one came up is the guy's like, Well, what do I do? And I'm like, Well, dude, I'm like, if you're sincerely worried or think that there might be some this guy's gonna blow his brains out, like, call the police. Yeah. Like, what else can you do? Like, you're you're a dude, like in your house, right, across the country. This guy doesn't know where you live or you know, any of that. I'm like, but if you're worried about his well-being, like, yeah, like call the police. But you ultimately can't really do anything beyond that. Like, we're trying to help the guy and like you know, just try to de-escalate the situation, like, you know, instead of being threatening or you know, high, you know, craziness with him, just look, man, I completely understand. We're gonna get you paid here. We just gotta make sure we're doing X, Y, and Z because um the BOLs did the BOL did show up with um, you know, the temperature listed incorrectly. So, um, but yeah, like the the threats of violence, seeing that of way too much. Like, um we had a dude like two years ago that was pissed off at the like one of the leaders in our company, and like sent him like was like, I'm gonna come, you know, do whatever to your wife, and like started sending like dick pics and all this stuff. It was like, was like, what what is going on? Yeah, like um, oh my gosh, dude. I I I've seen I've seen it way too many times. I had a guy tell me um he was gonna come to my house and kill me and my family. Like, that was like eight or nine years ago over like a payment dispute, and I was like, what? Like, you're absolutely crazy. But yeah, maybe I'm just immune to it at this point because I've I've just dealt with so many irate drivers.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Um, but yeah. The one I that happened this happened with a client horse like last year, I think. Yeah, the driver went back to the customer with a gun and demanded payment. And wow, needless to say, that brokerage could not work with that customer anymore, even though they had no ability to do anything about it. But yeah, like showed up with a revolver at the loading dock, um oh, here's just a crazy story now that we're talking about just crazy things that

Missing Driver And SWAT Surprise

SPEAKER_00 5:16

happened. Like this happened last week. Um, Tanner was telling me this last week. So they had like a box truckload of like children's furniture. Couldn't get a hold of um a driver. Check call, no one's answering. Call the dispatcher. He's like, dude, I can't get a hold of him either. They go, Well, where'd he ping last on his ELD? Like, looks like he was at it was like a it was either a truck stop or a gas station. I think it was like a Wawa. So Tanner calls the Wawa, like, finds the location, looks it up, calls and goes, Hey, like, is there is our is there a truck there? Like, we're me and the dispatcher just trying to find out, like, is this guy okay? Like, what's going on? Right. And the lady at Wawa's like, oh my, I have never seen anything like this that wasn't on TV. He's like, dude, what happened? They're like, the SWAT team showed up. She's like, not the police, not like um, not like uh like the state police, the SWAT team. Like, she's like literally like a movie. Like SWAT team vans surround the vehicle. There were drones that were overhead above the vehicle, and they arrest this person. And the police report was like severely redacted and had like no bond on it. But we later found out that it was likely related to human trafficking. And basically they had been tracking this guy for quite some time. And finally, I guess, nailed down where and what route he was on to be able to like kind of plan this. And yeah, pretty wild. So like they had to fly another drive route to go pick up the truck, and the load got delivered. So from the broker and the customer, still worked through the problem, but it was still a pretty wild scenario. Because I happened to talk to him at the end of that day. He's like, dude, craziest thing that I've seen that I can remember today.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Yeah. So I guess back to the question, what do you do? Like, just de-escalate and report as needed. Like, if if you think the police need to be involved, call the police. They deal with enough um calls every day that are bogus to not wild to and to crazy that they're gonna know if they need to get involved or not. So when in doubt, yeah, get it reported. Yeah. All right, our next

Defensible Carrier Vetting After Montgomery

SPEAKER_01 7:19

question. Um, after the Montgomery Supreme Court decision, what does a defensible carrier vetting process actually look like for freight brokers? I actually sat in on a webinar yesterday from Baker Donaldson, it's an insurance company. I think no, it's a law uh are they a law firm? Law firm. Um and so it was a bunch of lawyers that actually went through and were talking, and kind of everybody's got the same message now, and that's like have a good documented standard operating procedure, right? But it's one thing to have a good documented SOP, but if people don't know what that is or don't implement that, it's not really defensible. So I kind of think um, what does a good one look like? And that is we talked about it in really good detail in a recent podcast about this, but um yes, have a very clear, clearly documented SOP. Make sure that you're going through and vetting every carrier through that same SOP, and you've got to make sure there's buy-in and full understanding from everybody involved. And if you feel like someone is maybe too new or too novice or they're not really trustworthy yet to do things on their own, you've got to put barriers in place, right? This is why we have um some companies will have like a carrier compliance director, right? Who, if like if if a carrier hits a certain threshold, you're not using them unless that guy or girl says, yes, you can use them because they are the like the top dog in knowing what to look for when they're vetting somebody out. Um, so yeah, you've just got to, I think you gotta have things in place. It's kind of that mix of like process, technology, and like understanding and education of what's going on in the landscape around us. Um, what are your thoughts on that? A defensible, meaning like if if if there's a crash and an injury or fatality, like how can I defend myself as a broker saying that I did the right things? Like what what would you add or one reiterate point out?

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Like I was just talking with Ryan over at Genlogs last week. They're gonna be rolling something out pretty cool for this. But I think like the important things are like that there is a process. Two, that it is documented on every load, and that you can point to at least why a decision was made. Like to me, like those are the basics you want to start with, and then you go up from there of like, okay, do we want to now in that policy? Is it like, do we no longer want to use conditional safety rating? Because like we just don't know how these will be viewed. Or if we are, did we verbally ask questions and get these things confirmed before we booked the truck? Like it's really to me more less about like the specifics of what the policy is, I think. It's that it exists, at least now. Because there's no precedence, nobody actually knows what is going to and how these will be litigated. So I think like the best starting point is like you should at least have one. And what I mean by one is having a vetting software is not a process because there's always exclusions. And even when you do it, how you use them and how you set your rules are different.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Just because it says, Oh, they were they were good in highway, like that's not good, that's not defensible. Like, no, you didn't have any rules? Like exactly.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

And like you at the very least need to be able to like document this, just like a claim, right? Like, I don't think you need to overcomplicate it because like people are kind of doing this anyway, or at least should be, like looking at the things that we talk about all the time in the show. We could do another episode on it. I think we did one recently. It's like understanding what the basics are in any of these vetting, like equipment out of service, driver out of service, inspections, crash, drug and alcohol violations, like just like the four buckets to keep it simple. What are you willing to accept and why? And then just make sure people are doing this every time they choose a carrier. Because if something bad happens, at least in the guidance from I think it was Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, said is like you you just need to be, it doesn't mean like you're liable for everything a carrier does, but you need to be able to at least in court say, like, we chose this carrier for this reason. Yep. These are why we have these standards.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Exactly. All right,

Rising Spot Rates And Customer Pushback

SPEAKER_01 11:34

good question. Next one when market rates are rising, but a customer says that's too expensive, we're paying less last month. How should a broker respond without losing the load or damaging the relationship? We were talking about this on the finance episode of the podcast that we just did. Um so yeah, there's there's kind of I think one right way to operate in the spot market, and that is um to to you know to kind of ebb and flow with what the market's doing. So remember, remember, as a broker, we can offer options to our customers and access to the market. So if a customer is telling you um it's too expensive, it was less last month, educate them, right? It doesn't mean they're gonna take your your higher rate. They there might be some, like I think I gave an example of a large grocery chain to you that was like when rates started going up, they're like, we'll move it at a loss, or we'll someone else will. And we're like, what? Like, there's all yeah, there's gonna be some new broker out there that's like this big company's willing to work with me, uh, I'll take it at a loss and build that relationship. There's not a relationship there, they're just chasing a cheap rate. Um, so yeah, I mean, I I usually say, like, if you're operating in the spot market, educate your customer on you know exactly what's happening out there, why the rates are the way they are. And you give you always give a good example of like you get a rate or a date. So like if they're very price sensitive, like, cool, yes, it's $500 more on average right now than it was last week. If you want to try and hold that your you know old cheaper rate, like, do we have time to work with? Can I try to work this for another day or so and try to find a good fit at that lower rate? Um, because right now we don't have that option. You know, there's just not any carriers or trucks out there. So, what's your take on the uh um when the prices are going up and customers are hesitant or resistant to paying more?

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Yeah, like it's communicate and over-communicate. Like you you should be doing this anyway. Like, this is part of the service of running a brokerage, meaning like the customer can't see what's happening in the market. You can't. So, like, you need to tell them what's happening, right? Like, I don't know. I it's so funny because like I did this in a training yesterday. I was talking about in the podcast. It's like like I'm talking to my customers every day, and some maybe every week, but I'm constantly now, like, especially guys that do lots of spots rate. Hey, I know what you've been paying last week and last month. Here's where the market's at today. Do you want to increase the rate on this or see if I get lucky and we get a truck for last week's rate? It doesn't look great, but I might. Do you want to gamble with this load? Because it's theirs, right? Like they should be making that decision and they should be making it informed. You are providing the information so that it is an informed decision. Because from the customer's point of view, they're just getting rates from brokers, like, oh, these are a little bit higher. They don't know why. So be the guy that differentiates yourself from the other competition and tell them this is what I'm seeing.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Yeah, I'm uh I'm a big fan of like the data analytics tools out there and they're like sharing it with a customer. So, like that heat map from whether it's sonar or dat, um, you can show them like, dude, like this is what these areas of the country look like for um, you know, carrier capacity versus the demand to ship. Like, it's just naturally getting more and more competitive. It's pushing rates up. And oh, by the way, here's the EPA's fuel report and prices um for this week. So, yeah, more information is better. But uh, good

Final Quote And Sign-Off

SPEAKER_01 15:24

question. Keep sending those questions our way. We will keep answering them. And we'll see you guys on the next QA. Ben, what you got? Final thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

And until next time, go bills.