Kent Williams, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Averitt, would like to see better relationships between shippers and less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers.

One of the easiest ways to begin to achieve that, he says, is digitization, whereby shippers share detailed information with carriers.

The market has settled down since the failure of Yellow, which was the third largest LTL carrier in the U.S., Williams says. “I think that the industry's kind of right-sized. As unfortunate it is when a carrier goes out of business, I think it made the industry much more healthy,” he says.

Now, it’s important to focus on the best strategies to strengthen carrier-shipper relationships to ride the coming fluctuations in the market. “We believe that when shippers and carriers move away from a transactional relationship to much more of a strategic relationship, it creates lasting and meaningful partnerships,” Williams says. The best way to do that is for the shipper to share data so the carrier understands exactly what it is that they're pricing and what they're taking on, via the bid response. After that, it’s critical to work through any other issues, such as contractual language or assessorial fee schedules, Williams says. “Whatever it might be, sit down. Get in the room. Work on these things,” he advises.

“Obviously a shipper wants to find a carrier that they feel will meet or exceed their service expectations, but sometimes it seems like they just don't sit down and hammer through these last few details that can really hold up what could end up being a fantastic partnership,” Williams says. He emphasizes the importance of the shipper sharing a complete set of data. That’s most easily done digitally. When that happens, “it could be a genuine collaboration and could really, I think, solve a lot of problems.”