Losing your truck drivers to your competitors is never a good spot to be in. Considering how it costs thousands of dollars to find and recruit a new truck driver, it pays to have an established fleet management to keep your driver turnover rates to a minimum.
Formulating an effective driver recruitment and retention strategy is also just as important if you want to avoid experiencing driver shortage.
As all companies and drivers are unique, there is no one-size-fits-all formula to reducing driver turnover. However, there are some tried and tested driver recruitment and retention strategies that you can use to achieve pretty good results.
In this blog post, we talk about those proven driver recruitment and retention strategies.
Driver Recruitment Strategies
- So if you go to the doctor and make an appointment, they will ask you if you need a ride to your next appointment and then schedule the ride for you. The person being driven does not pay anything. All charges are sent to the doctor, and while they come through daily, they do not need to be paid until a bill is issued at the beginning of each month.
- If your auto transport truck driver does any of those things, in my opinion they deserve a tip. In other words, if they gave you great service, did what they was supposed to do, communicated with you, showed up on time or early, or if they were friendly and extremely accommodating, I think you really should consider a tip.
For drivers spending the majority of the day with you, as is the case with a limo or moving between airports, hotels, and events, 10 to 15 percent of the total bill is custom. You may find drivers go above and beyond and provide extra service to ensure safety or comfort. The final amount of the tip is always at the discretion of the client.
1. Establish Your Web Presence
The more established your web presence is, the more truck drivers can get a better feel of who you are as a company when they search for you online.
If most professionals nowadays are checking out a company’s Facebook page before they even consider working for them, there’s no reason to believe that drivers aren’t doing the same thing.
And so the question becomes, “What kind of content does your Facebook page and other social media accounts have?
Does it only show ads? Or does it show the interaction between the company and the drivers?
I hope you answered the latter. Otherwise, you might have missed several driver applicants who might have considered your company had they seen a good engagement between your company and your drivers on your Facebook page.
2. Run a Referral Program
Have you ever heard of the term Homophily? Here’s a bird’s-eye view of how Wikipedia defines it.
“Homophily (i.e., “love of the same”) is the tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar others.”
You probably know where I’m going with this, don’t you?
If you want to recruit more drivers, then you need to run referral programs so your drivers can tell their connections about it.
Because of our tendency as humans to associate and bond with the similar others, you can count on the fact that your drivers are bonding and associating themselves with other drivers as well.
Note: Be careful with your messaging. Other drivers are against the idea of referring more drivers to the company for fear of losing work. Some of the drivers adapt the more-drivers-means-less-work-for-me mindset.
Be effective in communicating the fact that having more drivers will enable your company to take on more loads, enabling you to give everybody more work.
3. Use Compelling Marketing Materials
A common mistake that most trucking companies make when creating their marketing materials is they focus on how fantastic their company is.
They talk about when their company was established, how much growth it has achieved since then, and the awards that they’ve won, etc..
While there is certainly value in doing this, we need to realize that the truck drivers aren’t as interested in who the company is and what it has achieved. More than anything else, they are more interested in the benefits that they can get from the company.
After all, what good is it going to do them if they get hired by the most prestigious trucking company, if they’re only getting half the benefits that most drivers get? I’m sure you can imagine how drivers won’t stick with the company no matter how famous they are, right?
That being said, when creating your marketing material, be sure to answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” Unless you give this question a compelling enough answer, you won’t get nearly as many applicants out of your marketing materials than you could have with a strong answer.
Driver Retention Strategies
4. Provide Better Working Conditions to Drivers
The better working conditions you give to your drivers, the easier and painless their life is while working with you. Better working conditions eventually lead to them wanting to stay in your trucking company instead of them constantly looking for greener pastures.
But then it makes you wonder, how exactly do you give better working conditions for your drivers?
Installing ELDs in your trucks is certainly a good starting point. Considering how some of the drivers’ most common complaints is them getting poor direction on how to get to the consignee or shipper or drivers getting stuck in traffic, you can easily keep your drivers from experiencing these issues when you have an ELD device installed in your trucks.
Moreover, electronic logging devices completely remove the possibility of form & manner violations. It improves drivers’ ratings and minimizes the number of penalties they have to face.
Do You Tip Medical Transport Drivers Ed
5. Maintain Good Relationships Even When Drivers Leave
It isn’t uncommon for drivers to look for other companies to work with thinking that the grass is greener on the other side.
When that happens, instead of taking the drivers’ actions personally, try to see things from their perspective instead.
Should the time come where your drivers will decide to leave you so they can work for your competitors, tell them that they are still welcome in your company should they decide to return.
When a driver works for your competitor and see how lucky they were to be with you, they will come back to you asking for their jobs. This time, they’ll be more loyal to you because they know first hand that you are treating them right.
6. Create Driver Feedback Loops
Before you even think about making momentous adjustments on your bonus system, you need to take the time to listen to your drivers to figure out what it’s important to them. And no, money isn’t always the answer to this question.
You can set up advisory councils, use suggestion boxes, have your fleet managers meet regularly with drivers, or run surveys using apps. You can even use your ELD device to send messages directly to your drivers, asking them about the things that they want the company’s bonus system to include.
If you’ll take the time to listen and take action on the suggestions that your drivers give, not only will it pave the way to creating a bonus system that your drivers will truly love, but your drivers will also feel appreciated and treated like a real person and not just a statistic.
Do You Tip Medical Transport Drivers Make
Also, be sure to talk to your drivers about how you’ll craft the message. That way, you’ll end up using their language, making it even more relatable to them.
What’s next?
If you have any questions about the KeepTruckin fleet management platform and how it can help, call (844) 257-6396 or email at support@keeptruckin.com.
One question that we get once in awhile: how should you tip a cross-country car shipper? Tipping is not required when you ship your car; drivers do not rely on tips for their income the way servers in a restaurant do. That said, however, a driver on a car carrier will be highly appreciative if they do receive a tip, even if it is a small one. Some customers tip drivers as little as $5, while others may tip as much as $200-$300. It all depends on what you feel is appropriate given the level of service that you receive when you ship your car with us.
If you want to acknowledge the helpfulness of your driver and do not have extra cash on hand for a tip, you can also call our customer service center and give them positive feedback—if you do so, be sure to let us know who your driver was. It is important to us that we know how our drivers interact with our customers (whether the feedback is good or bad), but we especially appreciate hearing when our customers have positive experiences. Of course, we expect all of our drivers to perform at a high level and provide service worthy of a large tip every time, whether you give a gratuity or not.
Tipping Cross-Country Drivers
Do You Tip Medical Transport Drivers Test
One other question that sometimes comes up: how do you manage the tipping if your car is being shipped coast-to-coast, especially if the person receiving the car from the driver will be different from the person who hands the keys over to the driver? Since no tip is required, this is not a big issue. It is of course perfectly acceptable to tip only at the end after the car is delivered. Many customers find it easier to evaluate the level of service after having been through the entire process of shipping the car. However, if you are so moved and feel that the driver provided excellent service from the first moment—as we hope you will!—there is nothing stopping you from tipping on both ends of the journey.
Factors for Tipping Your Driver
How do you decide how much to tip your driver? Here are a few things that factor into the level of service you should expect from our drivers.
- Communication. Did your driver stay proactively in communication with you and keep you up to date with anything you needed to know, from the moment he/she was assigned to transport your vehicle?
- Promptness. Did your driver arrive on time to pick up and drop off your vehicle—and give you a call in the event of any unexpected delays?
- Courtesy. Was your driver polite and friendly to you throughout the course of shipping your vehicle, in person and on the phone?
- Professionalism. Did your driver show up prepared with everything that was needed to ensure that your car shipping process would go smoothly?
We are confident that you will say a resounding “yes” to all of the above, because that’s how we’ve built our company. At Riley, we don’t settle for anything less than outstanding customer service.
Do You Tip Medical Transport Drivers Handbook
Testimonials
My dune buggy was shipped across the country without issue and delivered without any complaints!
Nathan C.
Riley Auto Transport customer