Shipping managers, you're awesome and here's why...

Your job is hard. Much harder than most people know. As a shipping manager, all the stresses offered by the transportation industry fall on your shoulders. Despite having very little control, you are expected to keep everyone happy. You answer to your boss, your sales reps, your project managers, and your customers. To add more weight to your job, all those people expect perfection. After all, it’s not hard…it’s just trucking, right? 

Wrong.

Coordinating transportation involves much more than making sure a truck shows up. The process is much more complex than outsiders perceive and the stress can be overwhelming at times.

You receive very little praise when shipments go well, but you absorb all the blame if something goes wrong. Late pick up? Your fault. Late delivery? Your fault. Your broker isn’t answering your calls? Your fault. Damaged product? Your fault.

We get it. You are under-appreciated when things go well, underpaid for the amount of stress you endure, isolated from the rest of your coworkers, and overlooked as a critical contributor to your company. You’re awesome, even if they don’t know.

Few of those who criticize you would last a week in your position. At Stream, we exist to right some of these wrongs. We can’t fix everything about your job, but we can relieve much of your stress and make your life easier.

One simple, yet impactful, ingredient to your stress is the lack of appreciation for what you do. You are unappreciated from many angles. Your bosses apply pressure without much praise, your clients expect every shipment to go perfectly, and your logistics partners expect more business without adding value for you. 

At Stream, we know you are the reason why we exist. Without the work you give us, we can’t provide our concierge services. We show this appreciation on every shipment. In fact, we make it a practice to explicitly thank you for every shipment you allow us to coordinate. You can work with any one of our competitors, so we are flattered every time you decide to work with Stream.

Some companies give you attention and show appreciation during the honeymoon phase, but the love seems to diminish thereafter. When working with us, you will see that we never take you or your business for granted. It may not be a lot, but we know you don’t get thanked nearly as often as you deserve.

Another contributor that makes your job more difficult is the lack of empathy people show towards you. People without your experience think your job is easy.

We know better. 

There are so many elements to creating a smooth shipment, it’s a miracle that so few issues do arise.

 When things go wrong, you are the fulcrum of blame. We are empathetic to this situation, and frankly, we give a shit about you. We give a shit about doing things the right way. By being empathetic to your situation, we will do more to shield you from bad situations. So, what exactly does that mean?

If our driver is going to be late for delivery, we call the consignee and explain the situation and absorb the blame. If market rates have increased after committing a rate to you, we will honor the rate and take the loss. If you need a special favor in order to impress your boss or client, we will go the extra mile to make you look good. We put ourselves in your shoes and do what we know we would want done.

One of the dominant stressors in your life is keeping up with the constant requests for updates and visibility. With an expectation of perfection, it’s difficult for you to impress your boss, sales rep, or project manager. It’s difficult, but not impossible. One way to impress them is to respond with lightning quickness when they ask you for information.

If they ask for a freight rate and it takes you 30-90 minutes to get the rate back to them, you probably met their expectations, but certainly did not exceed their expectations. If they ask you for a tracking update on a truckload and your broker doesn’t respond for several hours, you will look disorganized and the blame falls on your shoulders.

We combat these scenarios with information generosity and immediate response times. Our email response commitment is 5 minutes, but we often respond within a couple minutes.

If you request a rate, we will respond immediately, letting you know we received your request. Minutes later, we will follow up with the rate. If you need an update on a shipment status, you will already know the answer because we push you multiple tracking updates per day – up to every 15 minutes with our GPS-tracked loads.

Our focus on information generosity and fast responses help you look organized and in-control, which makes you much more likely to impress those around you. Our job is to make you look good.

The life of a shipping manager is hard. Much harder than most people know. We understand your stresses and we actually do something about it. We can’t make everyone respect you and empathize with you like we do, but we can help make your life easier.

Join us to hear more about our concierge approach to logistics.