Local Inbound Service with Dave + Amy Byers
Join us this week on Industry Insights with Route Consultant as we delve into the intricacies of FedEx service metrics with Dave and Amy Byers from Slicker Trucking. In this episode, we explore what service means from a FedEx perspective and how it impacts contract management. Learn about the holistic approach of FedEx's MEDALs system that rates service, safety, productivity, and customer satisfaction. Discover actionable strategies for managing day-to-day service, monitoring tools like the Daily Service Worksheet (DSW), and the importance of integrating technology to enhance efficiency.
We also discuss how to handle missed deliveries, the impact of express packages, and maintaining robust service during peak seasons. This episode is packed with insights to help you better manage your logistics operations and make smarter investments.
About Dave + Amy Byers
Dave Byers, President of Slicker Trucking, Inc., started as a FedEx package handler before launching his own route in 2007, growing it into an award-winning operation with a hands-on leadership style. His wife, Amy Byers, joined as COO in 2017, bringing expertise in marketing, compliance, and finance to scale their family-owned business. Together, they run multiple FedEx P&D and linehaul operations, two fleet repair shops, and businesses like Ohio Valley Pizza Company™ and Hokulia Shave Ice™, all while staying rooted in their core values of Honesty, Integrity, and Commitment to People.
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[00:00:00] Welcome to Industry Insights with Route Consultant, your front row seat to the fast moving world of logistics and beyond. Each week, we bring you game changing insights, real world strategies and fresh perspectives to fuel smarter investments and build stronger businesses. Join us as we sit down with expert guests to explore emerging trends and pressing topics.
Across a wide range of industries. This is industry insights.
We are back in the studio with Amy and Dave Byers, and this time we are going to be digging into one of the biggest things that FedEx cares about. I think often when we talk about. FedEx is the, their big concerns. We say safety and we say service. Mm-hmm. So I think, which I just wanna start, when you say service, when you hear service, what does that even mean?
From a FedEx perspective? Inbound service. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Delivering the packages. Okay. Yeah, I think that's the easiest way to start, right? [00:01:00] Delivering the packages is what we're talking about there at the end of the day, you know, that's the, let's get this package from the terminal and if there are packages to pick up, let's get 'em back to the terminal.
Yes. So when we talk about it though, what is FedEx trying to monitor on? You know, how are you judged? What is, what is service when it comes to actually managing a contract? So I think the big thing that pops up is metals, right? Mm-hmm. Everyone immediately goes to how are we judged, how are we rated? What are, what are metals for people I haven't heard from?
So metal is a, um, kind of holistic approach that FedEx has put in place, uh, to manage contractors. Mm-hmm. So you can kind of get a glance or a spotlight image of how you're doing. Yeah. Um, rated in gold, silver, and bronze. Mm-hmm. And there are a couple categories. Service and safety, obviously being the weighted, the heaviest, the largest percentage.
Mm-hmm. And then productivity and customer service mm-hmm. Are the two smaller ones, which is the smaller ones are where efficiency and ride, um, customer service and PPOD and those kinds of things live. Mm-hmm. [00:02:00] Um, very important, but only 20% of your whole grade, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so we, we obviously you have to be safe.
It's required. Yes. Um, and very expensive if you're not, yeah. So that one's super easy to kind of understand and digest. Yep. Even though there are some outside, um, things in safety, like hours of service and disqualifications and things like that live in safety, but it's mostly truck safety accidents.
General liabilities, preventable accidents, things like that. Mm-hmm. Um, so I think that is super easy to understand, but when it comes to service mm-hmm. I think that one is one that we're constantly looking for and there's some probably near misses, um, and some things that we overlook. Um, and that's what we hear quite a bit.
Uh, so we're kind of looking over here doing this with Ride and PPOD and that's what the managers, maybe that's what the terminal manager's hot button is, that they came from a meeting and. That's the buzz right? Today. And you're like, okay, I'm gonna work on this. Yeah. And then [00:03:00] service is over here doing its own thing and all of a sudden you look and you're at a 99 and you're silver or bronze and you don't know why.
Um, and you go, Hmm, well 99 is like good. Right? And why does that seem not good? Yeah. Uh, so I think understanding what. That piece of service is, um, is probably, yeah, that's definitely what the focus, what, what that focus of today is kinda the question that you were asking. Yeah, because I agree. It's, it's, it doesn't feel as flashy.
Right. You know, you're, you, you have a big accident, you're like, okay, I gotta figure out what happened. I gotta prevent those accidents. I gotta look at my veteran cameras to see what the habits were. Yeah. And try to prevent something like that from ever happening. But it's little things from service that add up, right?
That can be misses that happen over time or that you let slip and suddenly, like you said, your service has dropped and now you're. Trying to go back and figure out what patterns have come into place or what things were I not looking at correctly from the beginning. So I think let's dig a little into, you know, what are the actual.
Pieces of service that FedEx judges on, and then we can talk about how to actually manage those things. Mm-hmm. Well, well, um, some [00:04:00] of the service things like that, that we monitor mm-hmm. From, from day to day is we, we, we have our managers in the, the, the DSW. Okay. Which is kind of your snapshot of your daily service.
It's called Daily service worksheet. Yeah. And you can, you can monitor what, what's happening. Okay. So you can get in and you can check it and you can kind of intercept. Like if it's maybe the, uh, it's a business that goes out to lunch every day. Mm. And our, and we were there during lunch hours, so you need to, we'll, we'll do the research and we'll call the customers.
They'll say, oh, we're, we, were at lunch from 11 to 12 and your guy was there 1130. So you say, Hey, I need you to go back. That affects service not delivering. That package will affect your service. So. Deliver the package. Mm-hmm. You know, we swing back by, we get it delivered. That's helpful. So that helps your service, those small onesie twosie kind of things.
'cause that might have been a bulk stop of 30, 40 packages. You need to get, you need to get that stop off. And then you, we also run into bad addresses or we monitor bad addresses. Yeah. And, [00:05:00] and. What I, what I've trained the managers to do is to kind of identify the bad address and we will actually look up the customer, the address, and there's, there's a couple different ways to do that, and we'll try to intercept it and we'll try to fix that address, call the driver and say, Hey, we know this was a bad address, but here's the right address.
Could you swing back by and just fix it? Deliver it, and, and get the package, you know, delivered for the day. Yeah. So those are, those are two really simple ways that mm-hmm. That we found. To just get packages delivered. And we try to get our managers to do that, um, pretty regularly. Mm-hmm. So if we have like an eight 30 dispatch, 9, 9 30 dispatch, they're checking it like 10, 11, 30 or noon, 1, 2, 3, 4, and then again at five, because we try to catch it when they're in that area.
Yeah, right. Because that's the biggest, well, I'm not going back 'cause I'm already 20 minutes away and that is a waste of fuel. We get that too. Mm-hmm. Um, but it's also. You know, can contribute to either laziness or, you know, they didn't load that or you know, all [00:06:00] the MIS scan things. So identifying those issues throughout the day make it much easier to Correct 'cause they're right there or, you know, yeah.
While it's happening, kind of while they're in that head space. Um, yeah. Makes a huge difference. And we'll talk more about managers in just a minute, but I do think that already starts to point to when people. I, I, people come to me all the time and just be like, what do I do if my manager's not on a truck?
Like, how do they fill their day? And it's like, there are things you should be doing throughout the day, even if there aren't fires to put out. Yeah. Service is an area where they can spend a lot of time during the day to help be, you know, preventing future problems. Yeah. Or correcting quickly problems that could be corrected in the moment, but can't be corrected tomorrow.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Missed deliveries. Um, yeah, we do a lot with missed deliveries. Mm-hmm. We'll identify those and watch those drivers maybe a little bit more closely. Mm-hmm. Um, and does the, the DSW that you're talking about, the daily service worksheet, how. Real time is that update that's immediate? It's pretty, it's pretty accurate.
Yeah. So you can truly monitor it and use it as you're paying less? Oh, [00:07:00] yeah. If there's not, I mean, there may be a lag, but it's not like it's, it could be like seconds, but not hours. If someone, if someone's scanner's not transmitting, it could mess up. But you should catch that. Yeah. And you can make a call to that driver and say, Hey, some of our rural areas, all of a sudden the person will be like way behind and then all of a sudden they're mm-hmm.
It's like 27 stops. You're back. You're, oh yeah. They're back on track. They're back on track. Just now, if, if you, let's say you had some missed deliveries on a day. If you go and try to deliver it the next day, is that still a hit on your service for, um, that, that won't hurt your service. Okay. 'cause it'll still show delivered, so that won't hurt your service, but that's just a customer service.
Mm-hmm. But it'll hurt your service today. It just won't be updated until. Tomorrow when you fix it. Got it. Right. That's a 85. Or, um, any of those codes that don't get reconciled. I think leaning on technology is huge too. Mm-hmm. So we use FCC for the pickup windows, um, which is, you know, kind of, they turn yellow and then they turn red.
Mm-hmm. You know, so you can get kind of a glaring look of where your people need to be and if they're not gonna be able to sweep it, you can dispatch somebody that's close. [00:08:00] Mm-hmm. Um, we do that. Our managers and our supervisors do that kind of. While we're watching, um, there's text threads and group chats and things like that where we can watch those things happen.
Um, and then technology, we use ground cloud. Mm-hmm. Um, and the no scan report pushes. Um, we've worked with the terminal, so it automatically pushes right to ground cloud. So it'll say No scan. No scan, um, obviously not as helpful as actually scanning the box and putting it where it needs to be, but at least it tells you where in the route that there's a box that's supposed to be there.
Mm-hmm. So they can, while they're. In that stop or the next stop, they can kind of rummage through that section of their truck and see if the box is there. Yeah. Um, instead of just finding 10 of 'em at the end of the day and saying, well, I'm not going all the way back. Yeah. Especially in our rural contracts, it's really difficult to do that.
And in those rural contracts it's tough because we may only have 40 or 50 stops mm-hmm. On, or, you know, 40, 50, 60 boxes on the truck. Yeah. So you miss one and you're already. Into the nineties, [00:09:00] eighties in service. So, and we have a quite a bit of those. Mm-hmm. You know, so the average, um, so the other folks really need to pull their weight, um, to help that average kind of stay up.
And we really need to be diligent Yeah. About coding and service crossing and doing everything the right way. Yeah, so coding wise, those all codes showed up on the DSWs as well, or how much do you track and make sure that people are actually coding packages correctly? And I guess just a quick overview of what you, you mean when you say coding?
Uh, we, we can, we can check every code that gets placed on a package. Mm-hmm. So anything from damage packages to, not my package. Yeah. But on my truck, yeah. We can monitor that. And I can actually look and see. You know, if a, if a driver says, that package isn't mine, I can see what route it's assigned to.
Mm-hmm. And if it's assigned to him, then. He needs to go deliver it, or it's one of those one-off if's a nearby kind of situations. Yeah. Um, so coding in general is FedEx's way of identifying where the [00:10:00] box is for the customer. Mm-hmm. So it communicates with FedEx and the customer where the box is. And if it wasn't delivered at my front door, why and what happened to it?
Yeah. So those codes are reason codes, right. For why it got delivered or where it got delivered, or why it didn't, your dog was out, whatever that looks like. Right. So all these codes if done. Correctly will kind of hedge off any negative situations with our only customer. Yeah. Because you are at least above and beyond communicating with where the box is.
Um, and then when you do bring boxes back, they have the service cross where you kind of say where it is, what it should have been, what the address was, and what time and day. Mm-hmm. It happened. So they can kind of get an idea like, oh, at least you put in the effort. Right. You didn't just say, screw it. I'm not going back and delivering that.
Um, so I think that in general, staying up on those codes, but it is hard, um, when the boxes aren't on the truck. Mm-hmm. Um, sometimes they're on a neighboring contractor, so now you're. Trusting that the contractor's gonna code the box the right way. 'cause it's actually your box. Yeah. Um, but I think [00:11:00] just staying on the staff to let them know, like if it's, if you're not gonna do it, which is code 27, right.
I'm not gonna do it. Not gonna attempt it. Just be honest. We'll have that conversation tomorrow, but be honest. Um, so integrity with the coating the most. Um, and I think one of the new things is withrow. And ground cloud, we flex areas quite a bit. Mm. So if, you know, I'm in route one and you're in route two and my route one, just everybody in that neighborhood decided to go shopping that day.
Right. And we have all these packages and your route is not very heavy. We kind of flex that over and the, the culture, especially the mentality with some of the older, um, more tenured drivers. Mm-hmm. Not older in age, but older in tenured. Yeah. Uh, legacy drivers, if you will. They're like, well, that's not my street.
Wow, that's not my area. Yeah. And I'm like, no, no, no. Today it is your street and it is your area. Yeah. Because Amy had 200 and you only had 60. Yeah. So we're flexing in Dr. We're we're giving you an anchor area. Mm-hmm. Right. So the understanding of that conversation was also a [00:12:00] huge service. You know, kind of game changer.
And we have to watch them. They just code those as not their packages because it's not, not route area. So wrong route. Is that that a pressure service? Yeah, it's just a culture and training. So we have to communicate to the drivers and say, Hey, you know, maybe on Saturdays you take a little extra area and that's what it is.
But this is, this is your area. We can't have those packages brought back as not yours. Yeah. 'cause well, I mean, and, and it's not even necessarily. Uh, you know, a malicious thing on the driver's part. Mm-hmm. They might, they might literally think that it's not, not even your zip codes, like they Correct. They might think it's another contractor, like there are, you can give 'em the benefit of the doubt, but Yeah.
You know, there's, there's conversations that you can have there about Yeah. I'm like, you're still done at two o'clock today. Yes. There wasn't a lot going. Thank you for helping. And, and you said 27, so that's, you know, when they actually are not even gonna attempt it. Mm-hmm. What are reasons you see drivers coded as a 27?
Um, other than quitting? Yes. Yeah. Are there any legitimate reasons, I guess? Yeah. If, if it's an, if it's not [00:13:00] reported on their truck, they find it at the end of the, the day. Mm-hmm. You know, if it's, so they've done their full route. They've done the full route, now they found the package, or they couldn't find it during the day when they were at that stop.
Yeah. And then it was loaded on the wrong shelf. And it's too far to go back. We say just, just code it appropriately. Yeah. And we'll deal with it because then we can have the conversation, why did you have this? And they can tell us, oh, it's loaded on the wrong shelf. So then we can give the feedback where it needs to be given.
Mm-hmm. To, to correct the issue or, or to say, you know, he was willing to do it, he just couldn't find it. When was there. Yeah. Ran outta time. Sometimes if they have a, maybe even a breakdown. Usually if there's a breakdown on Route Flat tire or something like that, we send others. Right. You know, to kind of save the day, sweep something, help 'em out.
Um, but there's times, you know, where it just gets, we run outta daylight. You can't do it. You just run outta hours, you run outta daylight. And we just don't lie. Just code it what it is. It's not an 82. Um, you know, it's a big thing. So integrity is definitely a big, um, and we'll have the conversation tomorrow.
Yeah. Right. Like if, and if you just say like, Hey, it's five o'clock and I had somewhere to be. [00:14:00] We'll have that HR conversation. We'll have that conversation. We'll have that conversation tomorrow. But at least you did the right thing and coded it what it was and told us that. Yeah, so it's a behavior. So it could be employee, you know, behavior situations where there's a 27 and it could be actually guidance where we're like, everybody's home, we're not doing it.
We'll just eat it today. Service is still gonna be okay. It's only three boxes. Nobody's hurt. Rather serious. Correct. You know? Correct. Life threatening happened. Yeah. But the ones we will have a conversation Yes. But the ones that we can fix, we try to fix real time. Yeah. Um, Dave gets in there if the managers are, are out doing something, but someone's always poking around to make sure that pickups are good.
Mm-hmm. And deliveries are good and you know, there's, you know, if, if there's any missed deliveries that we get reported, like, Hey, where's my box? Yeah. Um, we correct those real time. Okay. And so, so what does good look like? What is, you know, what's a good service record? What do you guys push for in your own businesses?
Our, we push for a 99 3 every day. Yep. So that's, that's a goal. It gives us a little buffer to, to [00:15:00] be a little, if it goes down a little bit, but I'd, I'd say most days we run really good service. Mm-hmm. 99 7. But as long as you're monitoring the. Yeah, the service, you know, the issues that we talked about already then, then it goes pretty smooth.
And if you have a tough day, it's not the end of the world. Yeah, right. Because they are weekly averages and monthly averages that FedEx grades you on. Mm-hmm. So you can have a tough day, but as long as you're diligent and honest about it and have that conversation, sometimes we head it up and Dave will text one of the managers, like our manager will text Dave and then Dave will text one of the terminal managers.
He's like, Hey. That wasn't great today. Like we had a guy got really sick, we tried, you know, but we will, we have a plan for tomorrow, we'll get it all cleaned up. Um, so I think that helps also with credibility and responsibility, taking ownership. Uh, so it's a big thing. Um, but the contract averages are also, um, in metals are also managed and based against.
Other contractors in your hub area and nationally. So we've been in situations where we've been like, well, we're 99, [00:16:00] 99 0 6. Like, we're well above what the contracts does. Yeah. We're not where we wanna be, but we're good. Um, and then we slide into a different metals category and we're like, well, what happened?
They're like, well, yes, you met all the contractual right indications, but you compared to your peers, you know, your other contractors in the network, your. A little bit lower. So we, we try to shoot for that 9.3. We feel like the, the sweet spot is 9.36 to kinda stay in that silver gold. Um, and you know, and that allows you to have kind of that oopsie day.
Yeah. So if you get the majority of 99 sevens, 99 eights. You know, smaller contracts I'm sure can do a hundred, but the rural contracts, like I said, it's very difficult to manage a hundred. Yeah. Um, just because one box can really kinda shake. Yeah. That, that was shake, the whole whole track question is like, is it ever worth it?
Like I think a lot of people when they come in are like, okay, service matters. I'm gonna go for a hundred percent of packages. You know, how realistic is that in any, you know, average size business? It's a great goal, great goal [00:17:00] to have. But we've done it. Yeah. Yeah. We pretty regularly, a lot. But it, it's okay.
You're gonna have issues that are outta your control. Mm-hmm. You'll have bad addresses that you can't find the correct address to. Mm-hmm. You'll have businesses that are closed. The, the important thing is just to try to minimize that. Yeah. So if there's a business that's closed every Thursday. You input that in the scanner so those packages don't come to your truck on Thursdays.
Yeah, and that helps your service, but you have to do the work on the backside of it too. You have to get with a terminal manager. Instead of doing the same thing every day. Every day. Right. Yeah. It's definition of insanity. Yeah. Work, you know, work it out. We have a, a, a guy that gives us a complaint every day we go down the street.
He's at the very end. He does not get packages. Um, and our guys will, they'll, they're like, we're not going there because he's, and it's their neighbors. So we've reached out to the neighbors and like, can we access your house from the other street? And they're like, yep. So we park on the other street and our guy walks it and, and we get it done.
But it's, it's just those things. Yeah. Problem [00:18:00] solving and figuring it out instead of just saying like, oh, well this is what happened. I'm like, okay, well, it happens. Four times a week. Every week you're killing me. Right. So we have to, we have to think about it. We've had, um, in our, some of our rural contracts where they have these wild dogs kind of running around.
We've said, if we can't get this, you can't either put a dock box at the end of your driveway or something. We're gonna have you pick 'em up at the terminal. Okay. Um, so there's, there's ways to have conversations with people instead of just kind of eating the bad service. Yeah. But monitoring that DSW throughout the day, um, we share it with our managers.
Okay. We talk about management. Seniors and leads. Um, we text that to a group at 10 noon. One, two, and then like three and four. Mm-hmm. Um, because we try to get ahead of any of the struggles, um, and some of our supervisors will say like, Hey man, did you see what's going on? Like, there's some codes over here, you know, so-and-so's already running a 96%.
Like what happened? They're like, oh, he's gonna swing back. Mm-hmm. Like, okay, cool. Um, or the business was closed or whatever happened. Um, it's not on his [00:19:00] truck. Um, so as long as he's coding it correctly, right. We'll figure it out. Um, but they look at those things instead of at four o'clock when everybody's already made a mental game.
Yeah. For what their day looks like. Yep. Yeah. Um, and they're like, yeah, I'm not helping. I'm going home and to mow the grass. Right. Yeah. They know. Um, so we try to identify those service failures and those situations, bad addresses, all those things, um, really early in the day. Yeah. And we just watch it. Um.
Or else they build up and then they build up and then all of a sudden it's nine o'clock at night. You're like, who the heck knew that so-and-so brought 30 boxes back? Yeah. You know, and they're like, oh, he was out late and no one, you know, nobody was looking. Yeah. Do, do you think, you know, do you feel like service is more on your manager's responsibility than the aos?
Like, how do you feel about that distribution? Uh, obviously everything is ultimately on you as the ao. Sure. Um, but how do you feel about, you know, management, uh, BC ownership of that? I, I think with, with. With the, our structure that we have. Yeah. Our bcs are really managing it, and we have a layer between [00:20:00] me as the ao mm-hmm.
And the bcs. We have a senior level level management that they kind of hold the BCS accountable to, but they'll also. Take responsibility for the service. So they're watching it as well. Yeah. But it's, it's a good BC role because it, it's something they can monitor during the day. During the day. Yep. So you, you mentioned before, what do they, what do they do during the day?
Yeah, that's a great thing for them to check. They could check it as often as they want, and if something changes, they can go in and research it and do the homework and it, and it'll keep 'em busy. Mm-hmm. But if there's nothing to do, you know, that's okay too. That means they're doing their job. Yeah. You can also look, um, so some of our managers will, if we, if they have the time, right, if time allows, they'll get into ground cloud and they'll look at some of the maps.
And I like to say, it looks like the driver's driving around in circles, right? And it's like, back up, back up, back up, turn around, turn around and they, they couldn't find the house. Mm-hmm. So it's a great 'cause in ground cloud it's like a little yellow. Yeah. Chicken tracks, right? Yeah. And you can see where they go, the arrows.
Um, so that's a great. Stop to audit, right? Just to pop [00:21:00] in, especially on your new people, to kind of go in and make sure that 1, 2, 3 Main Street has actually been delivered to 1 2, 3 Main Street and have that conversation like, Hey man, I saw you were having like a little bit of trouble, like, did you find the house?
Yeah. Because sometimes new people, they're just like, screw it. And they just, yeah. It's like, I got a hundred more stops to make. They're, yeah. So, so I'm just gonna go ahead and figure this one out. I'll leave it here and hopefully the neighbors will figure it out. Um, so trying to identify those situations so you can train.
Kind of in real time. Yeah. Um, and it, it really does help. Yeah. So there's different ways of monitoring, not just the dsw. Yeah. Um, so to kind of monitor those things and make sure your, your service is good for the day. For, for managers, I often, if they, if they do have, you know, if they're thinking service first, how do you balance the, you know.
Them just being like, service needs to be great, FedEx needs to be happy. But also, you know, there are expenses as a business owner, if they're deploying too many people on the road. Yeah. Or if they're doing things to try to keep service up that just end up really hurting your bottom line. How do you balance [00:22:00] that conversation with managers?
We, we do a stops per resource. Okay. Summary at the end of every dispatch. Mm-hmm. So we, we know kind of per. Contract where we want to be. Yeah. So they'll send us a report at the end of dispatch and say, Hey, got it. It's, it's nothing crazy. It's just a, Hey, we're at this many stops per resource today. And if it's too low, too low, they know like.
Y you know, we, we won't be happy with that. So, yeah. But it could be reasons. It could be training, retraining, auditing. There could be a bulk stop that's kind of messing with the, the average. So if we run a bulk guy that runs five stops a day, he really, but he's a resource, so he really impacts that calculation.
Mm-hmm. So we take that into account and we plan for it, and we try to make it so it's, but, but they know, so they know if it's really light, they have to really keep a close eye on it because everyone will be done early. Yep. So we should have zero service issues on an early day. Yeah. But the service will hurt on an early day.
Yeah. Or a light day, because that one or two boxes really does tank the overall percentage. Right. [00:23:00] Smaller. So small denominator changes, so everything kind. Yeah. You know, so everything kind of changes. Changes. That just comes down to, you know, you guys are really transparent. You found a. A metric that can be transparent without you saying, this is how the bottom line looks and you're completely tanking my profitability.
Yeah. It's like this is a really easy, transparent metric that mm-hmm. You know what good looks like and you know what bad looks like. And so if it's outside the range that we want it, just try to help us explain or understand why while you're still balancing service. Those are things that the the manager.
Can understand and control without, you know, needing to analyze a p and l. So I think that's a really important flip side of this. 'cause, you know, like we talked about, a hundred percent service isn't always possible. And also if you're pushing service over everything. If service is great for your metals and everything else is in the, the dumpster, then yeah.
You know, you're not doing great either. Well, and that's where, um, we talk a lot about that silver is kind of our sweet spot, right? Yeah. Because we can manage profitability. Mm-hmm. We can manage service and we can manage safety mm-hmm. In this kind of window of [00:24:00] silver, right? Yeah. Because it may not be as efficient, uh, but the service is in the window, um, and in the window again to that 90.
99.36 is kind of where we shoot for. Um, so it's kind of a nice, but you have to manage that, what it means to your business. Right. Right. And how that looks. If you're running 10 p 1000 routes, um, and everybody's doing 180 plus every day, you get a little bit more wiggle room. Yeah. Right. You misdeliver one package and you're like, or you don't deliver a package, you bring something back and you're like.
Ah, okay. You're like 99 9, 9 9. Yeah. Um, whereas you have a bunch of routes that are only doing 40 or 50 stops. Yeah. You miss one. It's a big deal. And that average really does start, start sliding. Yeah. So, um, those are conversations that we actually even bring up in renegotiations and in unique characteristics like how do we manage to the same.
Metric system that even our Cleveland contract measures too. Mm-hmm. So that's one of the, the other things that we talk about when we talk about the benefit of, um, Dave kind of leaning into all these different contracts, they're all managed differently. Yeah. Um, so have conversations with your [00:25:00] terminal managers because the interpretation and the execution might be different.
Yeah. Um, you know, and, and the, the outlying, you know, how you, you drop down from what, 123 stops a day to a hundred stops a day. A couple mis packages changes gears pretty quickly. Mm-hmm. Um, so getting everybody on board. Uh, but you, like you said, not focusing hyper focusing on one thing and then kind of letting this drop.
Uh, but yeah, you know, definitely safety and service. Uh, we reprioritized, Dave was kind of jumping in, um, to ride and PPOD pretty intensely. Um, and our service, he's kind of. Didn't watch service for like a week and left it to the management level and was like, whoa. You know? Um, yeah. And it just took a little bit of time where we had a conversation with, um, the customer and some of the mm-hmm.
You know, kind of the numbers folks on how things were calculated. And he's like, oh, I, I need to focus over here. Like, this is a much bigger conversation. Yeah. Um, so we're still having those conversations and [00:26:00] sharing the information. Yeah. Uh, learning along the way. Oh yeah. Yeah. And so there's two other areas of service or two other times that I wanna talk about service.
One is express has changed things. How has, how has the, how have those packages express added, you know, complexity to your service calculation? Express priority? Yeah. They, they're, it has to happen. Mm-hmm. You have to be there in the windows, you have to get 'em on your truck. You have to keep 'em organized.
You have to get 'em delivered in the timeframe. Yeah. So that service, um. I don't wanna say unforgiving, but, but it's a priority to us. Yep. To make sure we get all of them delivered. And if you have a city route, they, you know, they can't do it's, they can't do 20, so you have to spread 'em out. Mm. So you have to get people passing through town to, to help with it and support it.
Managers, sweeps, managers, managers help. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then they have to be back at the terminal at a decent time. So you may have to send management out to, to collect packages if it's gonna be later, a later night for somebody. [00:27:00] To get those back so they're back in time. So, um, so we have them, um, in that terminal that we've expressed.
They look at how many they have, where they are. Mm-hmm. And they have to communicate early if they're not gonna make it or if they have issues or if they're so busy, they're not gonna be able to meet the sweep to get 'em back to the terminal. Yeah. 'cause it's not just delivering 'em or picking 'em up, it's actually getting 'em back to the terminal to cut off as well.
So it's kind of like this very delicate, you know, ballet of, right. Right. Yeah. Um, of, of. Structure and, and expectation and delivery and, you know, time commits and all these different things that you're balancing now. Mm-hmm. Um, so we do, you know, we have changed the way that the routes run. Mm-hmm. So if we had a guy that was doing 134, he is probably not doing 134 anymore.
Right? He might be doing 1 0 5. Yeah. Because he is got three or four pickups, or he is got a couple of express deliveries. Um, so we say it's. It's not harder, it's just different. So it's a huge mindset shift. Um, but service definitely has to be the focus. Like there is no, [00:28:00] um, you know, leeway. Yeah. So our manager in that terminal is hyper, hyper-focused on express and watching those deliveries and watching the pickups and watching the windows.
And if it gets within 10 or 15 minutes, you're like. Where are you? We're dispatching another resource. Yeah. We're, we're changing gears. Um, or if that person just kind of lost track of time, they're like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize it was, you know, 10 15, um, and I gotta be there at 10 30. Um, yeah. But there's also exceptions, so they have to manage to all that.
But I think the, the big thing is managing it in the morning, making sure that no one has too many mm-hmm. Um, or if there are too many to kind of make a plan for that early on. Yeah. Instead of waiting until people fail on route. So, yeah. So that one's ultimately one where. Although we say, you know, don't prioritize service over everything else to the rest of your contract, express does have to you, you have to, at least right now, the way, the way it's being built in, the way FedEx is prioritizing it, that for now has to be something that you figure that puzzle piece out out first and then everything else fits around it.
And [00:29:00] honestly, that's gonna keep you safe. Yeah. Because if you don't manage to. Um, kind of a balanced workload for your drivers and express where they can maintain service and actually hit that, that service bonus. Mm-hmm. Right? Where they can't achieve that, they're gonna be rushing. Yeah. And rushing means cutting corners and rushing means accidents and then safety tanks.
So then you get this, you know. Small bonus for doing your right thing, and then it costs you, you know, five grand because you know you backed into a house. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, those. So those are the things that I think, you know, by managing to service first and making it manageable and doable for everyone, it keeps your people safe.
Um, you know, so that they're not out until six or seven o'clock and they're chasing a clock and Yeah. You know, making their own plans and things. Yeah. And then the last area is during peak season, so how. Do you think, do you think about service the same way? Is it harder and does FedEx give you any more, you know, grace around service during peak or not?
Uh, I, [00:30:00] I would say peak is. Better. Oh, okay. More packages. Yeah. Oh, so you have more stops on the road? Changes the average. There's the math. So math, we're math in a little bit more. So changes. So your averages are, are better. Yeah. You can have a little more error, but we monitor it twice as heavy. Mm. We're, we're in it instead of the every couple hours, like Amy said, that we, we are for sure in it.
We leave it open on our computers all day. Ah, yeah. And we're refreshing and we're monitoring and we see if someone says I can't finish, or I, I can't do this anymore, that we send someone out to intercept the, the packages and keep 'em on the road. Mm-hmm. So. So I think at Peak Services a different conversation too, because peak isn't really about the number, right?
That 99 3 9 9 3 6, it's really about the boxes that have to come back tomorrow. Mm. Because those aren't coming you, they're not going away. Yeah. So if you have twice as many guys out and every bring Buddy brings 10 back, you're rolling. You know, 500 boxes. Yeah. Or 300 boxes. And that is gonna get loaded on [00:31:00] top of tomorrow's full route.
So you couldn't get today done, and now we're already starting out with a 300 package jump that we have to clean up and then get clean. Yeah. On that volume. Mm-hmm. And again, knowing that we have line haul, and I know they're using every single resource and they're two tripping guys and they're moving trailers and they're bringing in extra volume or they're processing volume from the night before, premium volume.
Mm-hmm. Um, on a Sunday or whatever that looks like. We get some of that data. Yeah. And we know, like, I'm like, you have to get these done today or else. It's gonna be a nightmare. Yeah. You literally see the load coming up. Yeah. And it's gonna be a nightmare tomorrow. I'm bringing that load. Correct. And we've gotta get it out tomorrow, so get ready.
Yeah. Correct. And an extra a hundred stops rolled is not a hundred. It's not a route because there are 10 stops from Yeah. 35 different routes. They're all across, you know, your, your area. So it's not an easy. Fix. Um, so I think staying ahead at peak services way different conversation. Mm-hmm. Because it's more about, um, I guess repercussions Yeah.
Of really not, it's not just like the, [00:32:00] you know, the outcome of, oh, we had a 96 or 98 day. It's really about. What are we up against tomorrow? And that's, that's I think where you really see the problems during peak is this, you get behind and then it just, it's a snowball. Yeah. And it just keeps getting worse and worse.
And, and especially if for people who are under-resourced or new, I, I, that's kind of the challenges that I'll see there. Mm-hmm. I think, um, one of the big conversations we have about service is also about, um, expectations. Yeah. So with the FedEx volume, right, it's. Very volatile. Um, we get heavy right now 'cause of tax season, then it's gonna be Easter.
Dave always says Mother's Day is very heavy, but Father's Day is not. Um, but then we have, you know, that, and then we kind of go into this drought in, you know, the summer late, late summer. Yeah. And then the sales reps are ramping up August, September for peak, trying to get new volume, new contracts. FedEx is shifting things, making changes, and then.
You're overstaffed. God, I'm never allowed to use that [00:33:00] word. You're overstaffed because you're hiring. Yeah. So you keep everybody moving and working. Um, so the, the volume count drops and then they get slammed at Christmas. Mm-hmm. And then they come outta that. And in Ohio it's weather. Yeah. So we have a lot of heavy days because of delayed weather and catch up.
Yep. So the question then becomes, well, I'm doing 80 stops every day, and now you want me to do one 40. So the hand comes out and they're looking for more money. Yeah. And they're looking to achieve that same service level. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're welcome For the 80, yeah. You're actually supposed to be doing 1 25, so you're really only doing 20, 20 more.
But it's that gap between what I'm currently doing and what my daily expectation is. Mm-hmm. And then what my kind of max will be and the gap between. What you're currently doing in your daily average, that conversation needs to happen because it's very easy at 1 25 to be like, well, I did my 80, so I don't really care about the service on [00:34:00] the rest of those.
Yeah. 'cause that's, that's you pushing me harder or I'll go back and get 'em, but it's not worth it to do this. Um, or on a Monday when they're back to the terminal by two o'clock and Wednesday, they had to work until five 30. Mm-hmm. Right? And they're like, whoa, this is crazy. Um, but to have those conversations, um, really forefront.
And say like, okay, like everybody enjoy the week. Like volume's light and it's gorgeous outside. Right? It's 80, 80 degrees in Ohio. Um, but those days are coming Yeah. So to, to remember these days when Yes. Remind them of the good times when they're in them. Yes, yes. When the gap comes, right. When the good weather's here, um, when you're wearing shorts and you're, you know, kind of looking to help someone at three 30.
Yeah. So I think those are really big conversations. 'cause I think that was a miss. For us, um, several years back we didn't have that. And then, then we would get pounded and they're like, but I do 80 day and now you want me to do 40? Like that's, or one 40. Like that's crazy. Yeah. I'm like, Hmm. It, it's very easy to remember those days and you got off at two.
Right. And, but from hyper focus on a day where you get off at [00:35:00] eight and, and from a geography standpoint, sometimes we can't load that person down. Right, right. It's just, they just won't. Get it or 'cause of pickups or whatever that looks like. But that 80, they still might be done at, you know, four or five o'clock.
But it seems less. Yeah. Right. And then you just ask 'em to do more. And that actually does affect service quite a bit. Yeah. So that's when HR gets involved. Mm-hmm. And those conversations. And you have to have some, you know, opportunities or maybe you do wanna collapse a route and you can say like, Hey, if you wanna take part of this, if there's a route in between the three of us, and I'm like, I'll take 20, you take 20, you take 20.
What does that look like financially? It saves me a truck, it saves me payroll. But if we're not gonna do it, if it's not sustainable with service Yeah. Then it doesn't work. Right. Then it's a miss. Yeah. So all those things are kind of going on in the background was as it relates to service. Yep. It's, it's all one interconnected.
Mm-hmm. Story of, you know, we, we talk about all you have to do is get the package from point A to point B and, and. At the end of the day, that is true. But there are little things and little things to manage, and conversations to [00:36:00] have, and priorities to have when you're both in for you as an AO and for your managers to understand about the business that add complexity and these little things they build up.
Mm-hmm. And then you find yourself in a situation where. You thought you were just delivering packages, but now you're having to manage all these other types of things that if you can build the right systems, the right processes, on a day-to-day basis for you and a manager, you can stay ahead of a lot of this.
Obviously, that doesn't mean you've built a process, so you're never gonna have a bad service day, right? Those are gonna happen and there's gonna be exciting days, but I think a lot of it comes down to how well you manage. From a day-to-day level on how well you've trained your managers to do so? just have to stay in it. Um, you're never gonna catch anything if you don't monitor it. Yeah. Whether that's you or whether that's someone you know that works for you. Yeah. Um, depending on what size, you could be a driving ao, you could be a, you know. A remote ao, but if you're not watching those numbers and, and trusting, uh, what's going on with your BC um, in local managers or supervisors or even driver level, um, it's important to stay [00:37:00] connected.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's one of the biggest parts of your contract and your metals. It is. It's if you're gonna spend some time somewhere, that's definitely percent should be one of your priorities. Yeah. You got so perfect. I think when it comes down to service, I think that really does help, uh, kind of.
Show and, and help people understand a lot of what goes into it from a day-to-day level mm-hmm. And how to manage it and properly run a business around it. Yeah. So thank you guys both for, for going through all of that and for, uh, helping anyone listening, both for people who are new and have no idea. And for those who've been in it for a while, there's a lot of things to learn from what you guys went through of how to do this correctly.
