Car shipping manual

PRICES AND VEHICLE TYPES
Sedans are regular cars that can be small, midsize or large. Prices between them are only slightly different, meaning the bigger the vehicle itself is, the higher the price, but the difference is small and mostly doesn’t even exist.
SUVs can also be small, midsize or large; the bigger the SUV, the higher the price. Usually there is no difference between small and midsize SUVs price wise, but large SUVs can often be huge and must be matched with an appropriate price (e.g. Chevy Suburban)
Pick-up Trucks can be small, crew cab, extended cab, full size or duallies. The same model can be made in all of these versions, so checking the type with the customer is a must. Small pick-up trucks have two doors and a slightly shorter bed (cargo space). E.g. Toyota Tundra, Toyota Tacoma, Nissan Titan, Dodge RAM 1500, Chevrolet Colorado...
Extended cab pickup trucks have two doors but slightly more room in the cabin. E.g. GMC Sierra 2500, Chevrolet S-10, Nissan Frontier, Ford-F150XL, Toyota Tacoma ext.cab…
Crew Cab pick-up trucks have four doors, front doors are full size and the back doors are slightly smaller, with a shorter bed. E.g. Toyota Tundra, Toyota Tacoma, Dodge RAM 1500…
Fullsize pick-up trucks have 4 full size doors and a long bed. E.g. GMC Sierra, Chevy Silverado, Ford-F150…
Vans can be passenger vans, cargo vans or minivans.
Motorcycles can be transported as well and they’re price should be the same as the price for a small sedan (MINI Cooper).
If a vehicle is inoperable, it’s very important to know if it can roll, steer or brake. Inoperable vehicles can be transported on standard trailers if they meet all of these conditions. The only difference is that they have to be loaded onto the trailer using a winch or a forklift. There’s also a possibility to push them, but the driver has to be willing to do that. Vehicles coming from copart auctions are often inoperable, but auction places usually have their own forklifts used for loading vehicles, so it’s always a good idea to double check if the inoperable vehicle is coming from a copart auction with the customer, because even drivers who don’t actually have forklifts can pick it up, and most of them don’t. The difference in price between operable and inoperable vehicles is in a range of $50-$200 depending on the vehicle size and route mileage. On extremely long routes, $150-$250 should be added to the price in comparison to an operable vehicle of the same size. On medium routes, we should add $100-$150 and on short routes $50-$100. The exact amount will be best determined investigating CD and comparing our price to other posted inoperable vehicles on that route (if any).

Open trailer is the standard truck trailer type, referring mostly to 18-wheelers with 18 wheels and a double platform. These trucks can transport 8-10 vehicles per shipment, depending on their size and weight. Vehicles on open trailers are secured with special brakes and weights, so they cannot move during transportation.

There are also trucks without platforms, with a flat trailer (flatbed, lowboy) that are most commonly used for transporting vehicles of larger dimensions (oversized vehicles) or vehicles that were in a car crash, with non-working brakes or a broken steering system.
Finally, apart from open trailers, there are also enclosed trailers which usually transport 1-2 vehicles and are used both for operable and inoperable vehicles. Shipping on these trailers is more expensive (the usual difference is about $300 or more on medium and long routes, and about $100-$200 on short ones, but the best prices is, as always, determined consulting both JT and CD). There are fewer enclosed trailers than open, they are harder to acquire and require more time to be booked.

What happens when the leads are priced?
In JT in the “Quote” section, preceding $, there are two windows, one above the other. In the top window, we input the Total Price towards the client, and in the bottom window, we input our broker’s fee. The difference is actually the price towards carriers. IMPORTANT NOTE: Both Sample Prices and CD display only the rough prices towards the carrier, add the broker’s fee must be added to the price. Then we note the price towards the customer in the internal notes section as well as our broker’s fee. E.g. 950/100. This means the total price towards the customer is $950 including the broker’s fee at $100, and the price towards the carrier is $850. This is a very important piece of information for the dispatcher, and it MUST be noted.
The next step is sending the initial quote to the customer’s email address. This is done by clicking on “Save and email quotes” in the bottom right corner of the screen. By pressing this button, a lead becomes a quote which was automatically emailed to the customer. The request is no longer in the leads section, but is now in “Quotes”. In order to find it, we should click on the “Quotes” tab in the top left corner in JT (home/leads/quotes/orders), then again in the “Quotes” tab in the next displaying window (follow-up today/quotes/hold/archived).
The next step is calling the customer.
Within the first 10-15 minutes upon receiving a lead, the customer should be called at least 3-4 times. Regardless of whether they answer the phone, the customer should be texted and emailed. If the customer doesn’t respond to phone calls, they should be called several more times during the day within reasonable time spacing, but it is necessary to direct at least 5-6 calls to one customer during the entire day. Every call, regardless of the outcome, should be noted in “internal notes” and the content of every phone call should be recorded as well as a reminder of what was offered, what the customer asked about, whether any further contact has been arranged, etc. This will help make the next contact with the customer much easier, and such information is also extremely useful for dispatch and customer support.

On the next day and the following day as well, customers should be texted and emailed with a follow-up email. Customers you’ve spoken to and the ones interested in cooperation should be called again, apart from being texted and emailed. Find your own way of prioritizing customers (notebook, Notepad, excel sheet…) and emphasize following up with them. They are the largest booking source. Some customer will never answer the phone, nor will they reply to your texts or emails because a great number of them is just looking for estimations about shipping costs for a vehicle they might end up purchasing, but you still have to make sure that the information you want to present to them, gets to them, which is exactly why we text and email apart from just calling. Some of them won’t answer the phone, but will respond to texts or emails, because they prefer such means of communication. Some of them will answer or call themselves after several days or even several months. Getting the offer through to the customer is the most important thing, they will reach out or reply based on your offer, once they’re ready to book their spot. Not a single call, text or email is lacking in purpose. Every single one counts.

What happens when the customer wants to book with our company?
Every quote has its own ID number which you can input in the “search” field. A quote can be looked up by the customer’s name as well (partial or full), by phone number (partial or full), by email address, vehicle, pickup and origin locations…Once it’s found, click on the ID number and a “Quote Detail Window” will be displayed. If something needs to be corrected or altered, click on “Edit Quote” and you can change any piece of information such as vehicle type, trailer type, price, dates…Every alteration is saved by clicking on “Save quote” in the bottom right corner of the screen. You can resend it to the customer as the updated initial quote (possible only in the Quote Detail Window, by clicking on the “Email” drop down menu on the right and selecting “Initial Quote”). If the customer wants to book, the quote should be converted into an order (done from the Quote Detail Window) clicking on the “Convert to Order” button. Then you should fill out precise pickup and drop off addresses and points of contact at both locations, select the 1^st available pickup date, price towards the customer (total tariff), deposit and, finally, the price towards carriers (carrier pay), Balance paid by COD (cash on delivery); COP (cash on pickup) to carrier or shipper invoice, if the customer is paying the full amount with us, and we need to forward the funds to the driver. The order is completed by clicking on “Convert only”. This saves all the data that’s been input. If anything in the order needs to be altered, click on “Edit Order”, then “Save order” in order for the data to be altered and saved as such. When the order is complete, an email confirmation should be sent to the customer (Only in the Order Detail Window, selecting the “Email” drop down menu and “Order Confirmation 2”). The email confirmation must also be recorded as sent in internal notes, as well as particular dates on which the vehicle will be available for pickup (e.g. order confirmation sent, p/u Sep 19-22), as well as any additional pieces of information relevant for the shipment (e.g. vehicle coming from a dealership or copart auction and always remember to stress the working hours in these cases so the assigned driver can fit the appropriate time frames). Finally, we post the order to Central Dispatch clicking on the “Post to CD” button. The quotes converted to orders will now be placed in the “Orders” section, but you need to further specify whether it is in one of these sections: orders/posted orders/not signed/dispatched/issues/archived. They can also be looked up by order ID number, customer’s name, phone number, vehicle…just like quotes.