It may be quite stressful and hard to work as a truck driver. Truckers must interact with other drivers and dispatchers to resolve disputes that come up often. They could also need to perform extra duties, such making extra trips to scan papers. Truck drivers frequently experience persistent weariness, and occasionally they even have to deal with crashes and accidents.
If you're not used to it, the language used by truckers to communicate with one another might be challenging to grasp. Truck drivers have long developed and used CB lingo extensively. These abbreviations, such as "10-4" and "bunkie," have developed through time as a result of dispatchers' frequent misinterpretations of truck drivers.
CB radios and phones are the main means of communication for truck drivers. Truck drivers can only utilize CB radio in specific local locations due to its limited coverage area. The use of smartphones in freight communications is increasing. Truckers may talk to each other and check trucking mobile apps while on long travels.
Truck driver communication
Communication with truck drivers must be effective and efficient if you want your business to succeed. Misunderstandings can result in lost employment and dissatisfied clients, but delays brought on by poor communication can also swiftly damage your company's reputation in the market.
Effective communication may reduce inefficiencies, prevent expensive misunderstandings, and boost employee and owner-operator morale. Better communication not only results in happier and more productive employees, but it also has financial advantages like reduced fleet fuel costs and shorter cycle times.
The good news is that there are a few simple things you can take to prevent misunderstandings from impeding your achievement. The following nine easy methods can help you and your drivers, dispatchers, and clients communicate better:
(banner1)1. Meet and get to know your drivers
It is perfectly feasible to post a trucking job and recruit drivers in the contactless world of today without ever having met your truckers in person. Although it greatly increases operational efficiency, it can also make it more difficult to foster a good working relationship between operators and dispatchers.
2. Take full advantage of SMS options
Highways, cargo docks, and truck stops are very noisy locations. This makes having crystal-clear, two-way discussions on a cell phone or CB radio a serious issue. Poor communication is frequently worse than no communication at all.
3. Use several languages to communicate
The majority of Americans (78%) speak exclusively English at home, according to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, meaning that 22% of people would rather speak a language other than English. Even while communicating with truck drivers in English alone is the standard, doing so might result in misunderstandings between your drivers and dispatchers.
4. Keep using those CB radios
CB radios are still necessary in the trucking sector, despite the fact that they are no longer the indispensable instruments they once were. Truck drivers rely on their CB radio to stay in touch with other motorists while they are on the road, whether it be to share information about their preferred truck stops, relay weather alerts, or plan the safest routes.
5. Remove the jargon
Make sure your writing is simple, to the point, and free of jargon or slang that might be misunderstood. This is especially true when sending a text message, as you can never be completely confident that it will only be viewed by your driver.
6. Avoid sending furious text messages and emails
Never send your drivers any messages or emails that are overly emotional. Not only is this unprofessional, but there's a significant probability that doing so will just make the issue or problem worse.
7. Make use of online scheduling and dispatching tools
Finding a scheduling application or app that is truly created to suit the complicated requirements of the transportation, logistics, and construction industries is the problem, as opposed to one that is intended to assist you schedule your child's soccer games or hire workers for a shop location.
8. Use video chat applications
In 2020, applications for video conferencing like Zoom, Facetime, and Google Hangouts became widely used. We also learned how video conferencing may improve both our personal and business communications.
These applications may be a terrific method for your team to engage with one another, even if they are on different sides of the nation, even though they can never completely replace in-person interactions.
9. Attention
Simply listening to them will go a long way toward improving communication with your truck drivers. That may be promptly responding to a request for time off, accepting a call from a driver who is irate over a delay at a loading dock, or even offering to listen to a trucker who is having a difficult day.
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