Dispatching Business Anatomy: Role of a Trucking Dispatcher Explained

let's start off by talking about the anatomy of a dispatching business so what is a dispatching

business really what a dispatching business is is a business that helps owner operators of a trucking company

find Freight uh speak with Brokers conduct negotiations dispatch drivers handle backlog and just set up routes

that will make the most money for the trucking company in most cases the owners of these trucking companies are

also the drivers of the truck so handling the load booking aspect and everything that comes with it becomes a

tedious task for these um owner operators so that's where the dispatching business comes

in so here's a quick diagram to kind of break down the anatomy of a dispatching business and the parties involved so you

have uh first you have the motor carrier which can also be referred to as the trucking company which tends to hire a

dispatch company to work on behalf of the motor carrier in order to book loads and handle all the backlog required

during the process so our job as dispatchers is to make sure that we find the uh best loads possible for our

clients and the drivers so on the other side of the transaction you have the Brokers which are hired by the customers

who need their Freight mve from 08 to point B so a customer will give a set budget to their broker to have their

Freight move the broker will then post the freight on a lowboard or reach out to a existing carrier which they've done

business with in the past and try to have the load moved so in essence the role of a broker is to find a truck to

haul a load for his or her customer at the lowest possible rate in order to increase their own profit margins so for

example a customer might say hey uh I have this load that needs to be moved from Atlanta to Texas and I'm willing to

pay 4,000 for this the broker will then post the load on a board offer to pay maybe 2,000 to the truck driver and keep

the other 2,000 to themselves that's why as dispatchers our role is to make sure that we fight for our motor carriers and

negotiate on their behalf and try to squeeze out as much money as we can from the broker because our income is

directly related to how much our clients make so the more money our Motor Carrier makes the more money we make because we

will be invoicing our client a percentage of their weekly gross income so uh in general a dispatcher and

a broker are both middleman um so now this is a general view of the anatomy of a dispatching

business and the parties involved you know you'll almost never deal with the customers you'll mainly be dealing with

your client which in this case is the motor carrier and you'll be dealing with the

broker so what's the role of a dispatcher in this Logistics business well in short a dispatcher is basically

a virtual assistant with a specialized skills working on behalf of the Boer carrier dispatch are middlemen between

the motor carrier which in this case would be your client and the freight freight broker so dispatchers main

objective is to book loads and perform admin work for their motor carrier I always get asked uh you know do I need

any some sort of special licensing to be a dispatcher and the answer is no so to become a dispatcher you're not required

to have any sort of Licensing you're strictly operating under the motor carriers MC Authority and basically

working on behalf of your client as a virtual employee so your role as a dispatcher would be to call Brokers that

post loads on lowboard so which meet your carrier's criteria and um go over the details of the loads with your

driver or your carrier and proceed with the booking so we're going to go over in detail on how to book loads in the

coming lessons so don't worry about that right now so before booking lows you as a dispatcher as I mentioned will call

Brokers to obtain all the necessary details about potential load which your carrier might be interested in you'll

ask the broker things like where the load picks up at where it delivers the times the weight the commodity the rate

for the load you will uh negotiate the best possible rate for that potential load and then go ahead and present that

load option to the carrier in a streamline process I'll be teaching you how to do all this in more detail in the

coming lessons this is just a general overview of what your role would be as a dispatcher now once your carrier agrees

on a load which you've presented to him you will then go back to the broker and ask to book the load the broker would

then send you a carrier packet assuming that this is your carrier's first time working with this broker you'll then

fill out the carrier packet and inform the broker once it's once it's complete so a carrier packet is basically a sign

up form between the broker and your carrier so Brokers can't just give you your carrier a load without making sure

they meet all the requirements like having property insurance active MC Authority and a few other things now

once a carrier packet is complete the broker will then put your carrier in their system and send you a rate

confirmation which basically is a legal binding document with all the low details such as pickup and drop

addresses along with how much the lootus was booked for you will then sign the ray confirmation and send it back to the

broker and email it to your carrier again we'll go over this process in more detail in the coming lesson so don't

worry too much about it right now but this is basically the uh chunk of what we'll be doing as a dispatcher which is

booking loads that fit your carrier's criteria so over time you will know the type of loads your carrier will want and

the rates and you can just book loads quicker without having to check with your

carrier so another responsibility of a dispatcher is to communicate with Brokers about driver status updates and

any issues that arise at shipper or receivers with a load so if there's any issues or delays at shippers and

receivers your job would be to reach out to the broker and push him or her to call their customer to have your driver

loaded or unloaded quicker so sometimes it can't be helped if there is a long line at the shippers or receivers or if

your driver misses appointment but you know most of the time communicating with the

Brokers um it would be very beneficial for you and and your carrier um in most cases uh when you are commun with the

Brokers it's mainly done through email because um I noticed that Brokers tend to be busy on calls but they are able to

respond to the emails much quicker so another thing um load load pre-planning is another responsibility

of a great dispatcher so if you want to be good at what you do you must pre-plan your routes for your carrier you should

know where you'll be booking your next loow to and think two steps ahead so that drivers can plan their hours and

drive time accordingly so it's important that you stay on top of the loads boards and have your carriers booked at least a

day ahead so when drivers don't know what or when their next lootus they start getting stressed and think that

you're not doing your your job so you want to make sure when you book loads that you're not booking loads to bad

areas or or the driver might get stuck the next day and you know not be able to come out of that area so we'll talk a

bit more about booking loads in the next lessons um but for now let's move on and talk about why carriers hire

dispatchers so there's a few reasons as to why carriers would want to hire dispatchers so first being convenience

and uh efficiency so driving a truck while also dispatching can be a huge hassle for most owner operators and it's

just something that they would just rather avoid so sometimes truck drivers that dispatch themselves uh they tend to

miss out on great great paying loads because they're too busy driving or they might be in a bad uh cellular area you

know or they might be trying to secure a load on their trailer and they just can't check the lad board on their phone

so a dedicated dispatcher in this case can help them pre-plan loads so that the drivers can focus on driving and

planning their time accordingly so uh another reason as to why carriers hire dispatchers is due to

all the administrative work needed to be done on the back end when booking loads so most owner operators miss out on good

loads because they're not set up with Brokers and I've seen it happen many times um when owner operator is trying

to Fran frantically uh fill out a carrier packet on their mobile device and uh broker just gives the load to

another carrier which happens to be already set up with them or or maybe the other carrier just has a dedicated

dispatcher who quickly goes through the carrier packets on their desktop um so in some cases Brokers will

even require the carrier packets to be done by hand and most truck drivers do not carry fax machines or printers with

them so another reason as to why a carrier might want to hire a dispatcher is that they may not like working on

their phones you know negotiating and just being bossed around by a broker it's not really a fun thing for a lot of

these drivers so most truck drivers they would just rather uh let the their dispatchers uh deal with the

Brokers um you know another thing I've noticed is a lot of truck drivers they don't really know how to negotiate

properly so a lot of these Brokers tend to uh walk over these drivers and you know it's not really fun for them so you

know an owner operator would just rather provide an ultimatum to their dispatcher and they let the dispatcher handle the

negotiations and just general communication with the broker uh another big advantage of

carriers um that hire dispatchers that dispatcher dispatchers tend to have experience in solving problems so as a

dispatcher over time you will become very familiar with how to handle common issues and how to deal with Brokers you

know you'll be considered an experienced dispatcher at that point and an experienced dispatchers tend to face a

lot of the same Logistics problems on a daily basis so this gives the dispatchers an advantage uh at solving

problems quicker and more efficiently over a truck driver without the same level of expertise so so uh in the

coming lessons we'll go over these common problems um and how to solve them so that you'll be an expert dispatcher

in your field without having the years of experience required to you know know how to solve some of these common

problems [Music]