7 Ways to Make your chemical cargo more attractive to liquid bulk carriers

In an industry as competitive as trucking with many liquid bulk carriers often competing for the same lanes, its very common for liquid bulk trucking companies to develop “favorites” or premium shippers whose loads get preferential treatment over all others.  In a crowded market constantly strained by liquid bulk tanker capacity limitations it is more important now than ever to have an edge over the rest of the liquid bulk chemical industry competing for the same trucks.

In this article we will detail how you can do just that and give your chemical freight the edge it needs to move to the top of your broker and carriers load boards.

1. Know Your Chemical Products

In order for your liquid bulk carriers to book trucks for your freight, it is important for you to know the ins and outs of the entire movement.  Liquid bulk carriers need to know things like the name of your chemical product, the loading and delivery hours, any special chemical trailer requirements and any other additional information you can provide. This makes your loads much more appealing to truck drivers and therefore more likely to be covered quickly.

Many liquid bulk carriers will ask you to provide an SDS (Safety data sheet) and to disclose any prior cargo requirements to prevent the possibility of contamination and to match your freight up with the proper equipment.

2. Book High Volume Freight to Liquid Bulk Carriers

The most attractive freight to any liquid bulk carriers or brokers is freight that is recurring in nature.  Whenever you can present your liquid chemical freight as a recurring job, carriers will be more inclined to not only give you priority access to their bulk chemical equipment, but also premium rates because they know their trucks will always be loaded.

In addition, repeat business gives drivers the opportunity to get familiar with your product, customer, shipping and delivery staff to make for smoother pick-up and delivery processes meaning less surprise calls after hours.

3. Pay Liquid Bulk Carriers Well.

Carriers care most about two things, getting paid well and getting paid fast.  Make sure you are always paying your carriers top dollar, especially if they continue to do a good job.  They will always pass on savings to you when they can.  If you work with a reputable liquid bulk chemical broker, make sure they have a strong credit rating so that you know for sure the carriers hauling your freight are being taken care of.

4. Have Flexible Shipping Hours.

Remember, as well as brokers and liquid chemical freight carriers treat you, you are not the only customer in their portfolio.  There are many complexities to shipping each load to take into account such as driver time sheets, deadhead miles, drivers PTO, and more that need to be factored in to loading your chemical freight.

The more flexible you can be with your shipping hour requirements the more trucks that will be available to ship your loads at more competitive prices.

5. Schedule in advance

The most successful supply chains are those planned well in advance.  This allows time for errors and to recover from unforeseen circumstances that plague any operation as complex as logistics.

Chemical freight booked in advance not only gives you chance to book premium carriers on your freight, but also the chance to recover a dropped load on the rare occasions that happens.  A good liquid bulk chemical broker will always be able to cover a dropped load at the last minute, optimally keeping your supply chain in check and on schedule.

6. Keep yourself available

The crutch of the chemical freight industry is communication.  This can be used to your advantage or disadvantage on every shipment you book with a liquid bulk chemical carrier or broker.  The most harmful thing you can do as a chemical supply chain coordinator is to send your shipment to a carrier or broker and then disappear for the rest of the day.

Whether it’s time to close-up shop or you are taking some personal time off, its important that either you remain accessible while your shipment is in transit or you appoint someone to act in their place.

Reputable liquid bulk freight brokers like Total Connection employ a 24/7 event response team to monitor all loads in transit at all hours of the day and night.  If something happens, its important that we are able to notify you immediately to eliminate or minimize the possibility of unforeseen charges that can accrue very quickly.

7. Build Relationships with Liquid Bulk Brokers

While it may seem great to work directly with liquid bulk carriers, there will be times that they do not have the capacity to cover some of your loads either due to scheduling or simple capacity shortages.  During time’s like these its important that you can rely on a reputable liquid bulk chemical cargo broker to help you source the capacity you need.

Brokers who specialize in liquid bulk freight like Total Connection have vast and extensive networks of carriers that you can tap into with a single phone call to double or triple the probability of getting your loads covered quickly and for the right price.  Having a single broker who is familiar with your freight requirements minimizes the time you need to spend searching for trucks and haggling with carriers over price.

Depend on Total Connection Logistics for your liquid bulk cargo shipping

Whether you are shipping hazmat chemicals, polymers, fertilizer, acrylates or any other liquid bulk chemical, Total Connection has likely shipped it over our 20+ years in business.  Our liquid bulk chemical experts have over 30 years of relationships and goodwill with the most reputable carriers in the industry.  Simply put, when Total Connection sends out a load list, our freight rises to the top.  We pay carriers quickly and let you enjoy the benefit of extended terms so that you can keep your cashflow strong and develop more business in the best interest of everyone.

Contact Total Connection today by phone or by any form on this website to see how we can help you move your liquid bulk chemical freight anywhere in the US or Canada.