Auto Shipping Glossary: Dispatch
In the auto transport industry one of the most important things that you need to understand is the term “dispatch,” how it works, and what it means for you and your vehicle shipping services. Simply put, the term “dispatch” is used whenever your auto transport company is searching for an auto transport truck to ship your vehicle for you.
The dispatch process can be quick and painless and long, time-consuming and boring, especially for customers, as there are literally thousands of carriers out there on the road today, and when your vehicle is being dispatched there’s going to be a lot of time spent trying to figure out where the different carriers are in relation to you but, more important, what the popular routes are, and this is more difficult than you think.
Different auto transportation companies do their dispatching in different ways. Many smaller auto transporters will have their representatives – in other words, the person assigned to you to help you ship your car – also be your dispatcher, meaning they will actively look for a carrier for you when they have time.
The downside to this method is the fact that a single representative is basically handling your entire order from start to finish, and that’s just one of their orders – depending on the company, reps can have up to eight, ten, sometimes even twelve different customers all trying to get their vehicle shipped at the same time.
As you can imagine, this can put a lot of strain on a single rep and actually make it more difficult for them to dispatch their orders. On the other hand, one representative having that much control over an order can make things easier for many customers, as they have only one person to deal with from start to finish.
But still, the work load in a brokerage is real, and it’s why many of the larger companies have separate dispatch departments, whose job it is to call out on trucks all day and get vehicles assigned to carriers. This can be really useful because for representatives jugging a multitude of different customers, having a separate department to handle one of the most important jobs someone shipping cars for a living can do can speed things up and make things a lot easier.
Of course, this all depends on how good the people in the dispatch department are. You can have the best rep in the industry working your case, but if their dispatch department is run by a bunch of monkeys, nothing’s going to get done.
Most of the time your rep will deal with the dispatch department for you, as dispatchers are too busy dealing with a gazillion different transport companies to deal with customers. That’s the rep’s job. Both ways have their advantages and disadvantages, and you’ll find this as you start looking for an auto transport company to ship your vehicle.
There is no “right way” or “wrong way” to dispatch; as long as the cars are moving, if it isn’t broken, there’s no need to fix it, and this is what a lot of auto transporters will say when they start shipping your vehicle. This is also why dispatching takes time – whether your rep is doing it on their own or if they’re passing it to a dispatch department, there’s only so much time to dispatch for you, and only so many companies to call each day. Dispatch takes time, generally anywhere from 1-7 days, so keep that in mind.
If you’re interested in shipping a vehicle, you should really fill out our free online quote request form. It’s completely free and gets you a free quote to ship your vehicle right away. From there you can talk to a representative who can answer your questions, breakdown your quotes and services and help you get your vehicle shipped today.
Since 2007 Dave has written all the content and blogs for American Auto Shipping and during this time added the duties of customer support and transport logistics.
He currently resides in Washington with his three kids and their mom and cat. A fan of Marvel movies and good stories, when not shipping cars Dave can be found working on his novel, enjoying a good book or playing some tournament HALO.
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