SALES & AGENCY BULLETIN

Transcription

1 February 10, 2012 SALES & AGENCY BULLETIN Roosevelt and Gardner Road, Broadview, IL Fax To: From: Subject: All Agents & Employees Mark Doyle, Vice President Sales and Agency Development Save Our Shipment (SOS) Blog National is excited and proud to announce an industry first the SOS Blog! The program is designed to use technology as a facilitator for capturing revenue opportunities that otherwise may not avail themselves in a normal registration environment. Simply put, all agents will be able to post shipment offerings in a pre registration environment that may not always fit standard transportation pricing or transit guidelines. It becomes a mechanism to flush more bookings out of your sales pipeline for customers that have unique or extraneous demands created by internet dynamics. Shipments tendered on the SOS Blog site are not subject to pricing guidelines or hauler protection. The standard booking and hauling compensation percentages will apply for each opportunity unless the booker and the hauler agree on a different split that does not affect NVL retention. Additionally, agreements made on the Blog require the service provider to make good on their commitment(s). Failure to provide service as indicated that obligates NVL to move the shipment in order to meet the commitment made to the shipper, will subject the applicable provider to a potential charge back for costs incurred. EXAMPLE: Agent Booker A (located in Dayton, OH) gets a lead from a customer moving from Columbus, OH to Tampa, Florida. The customer has 2000 lbs. The shipment requires a direct loading within 4 days and a maximum 4 day transit. The customer s budget is $1200. Agent Booker A computes the charges keeping the cost of the move within the customer s budget. It requires a 70% discount. Pricing and transit guidelines will not permit the registration. Agent Booker A has no equipment available to self haul.

2 Agent Booker A posts the offering on the SOS Blog. Every agent in the system is sent an about the SOS offering, and it is posted on an SOS Board for every agent to view. Agent Hauler B (an agent that is physically located in Jacksonville, FL) is delivering a selfhaul in Columbus, OH on the day the offering is posted. Agent Hauler B is scheduled to load 10,000 lbs. the following day going from Columbus, OH to Sarasota, FL. Within two days of the SOS posting, Agent Hauler B realizes that they can load the 2000 lbs., meeting the customer s requirements, in the space remaining on their vehicle after loading the 10,000 lbs. they have been assigned. And, they will be able to deliver the shipment on the way to Sarasota, FL, thereby meeting the delivery requirements. Furthermore, despite the high discount, Agent Hauler B knows it will cost $150 in labor to load and unload the truck and, therefore, will still have a revenue pool left to offset fuel and tolls in getting the main load to Sarasota, FL on standard compensation with no driver protection. Using the SOS Blog Board, Agent Hauler B commits to Agent Booker A their acceptance of the shipment. The offering comes off the Board and the booker, hauler, NVL Accounting and NVL Operations are ed the shipment parameters. Agent Booker A can now register the job. The customer is serviced, the Booker wins and the Hauler wins. delivered. YES, WE CAN is To get started, go to the National Van Lines Agent Network and click on the SOS icon. The Agent Network user ID and password are issued to each agency principal. In order for this to work for everyone, we encourage ALL agent owners and principals, ALL sales personnel at the agent and all agency dispatchers to register for the program. This will create an exponential number of people working together to create more revenue from sales opportunities. 2

3 For technical assistance and registering yourself for the program, please contact: Tom McHugh Ext or For information and strategic guidance on how this program can benefit your agency by creating more booking and hauling revenue streams, please contact one of the following staff members or Agent Council Members: NVL Staff: Mark Doyle Ext Paul Gregory Ext Dick Scaffa or or or NVL Agent Council: Joe Bonnie Joe Bonnie and Son or Bobby Vann American Way Van & Storage or Gary Ratliff Southern CAL Moving or Bob Vetzel Hill s Van Svc. of No. Florida or

4 Dear SOS Participant: Thank you for your interest in the SOS program. Please follow the directions below to register, log in to and navigate the SOS website. Browser Considerations Before you register for access to the site it is required that your browser of choice allows cookies. A computer cookie is a small text file which contains a unique ID tag. This cookie is placed on your computer during the SOS registration process. Most browsers do allow cookies by default. But if you have set your security to HIGH, there is a likelihood that cookies have been disabled (which would not allow you to access the site). Aside from enabling cookies, you also need to ensure that your browser checks every page for new content upon every visit. To access this area of Microsoft Internet Explorer select TOOLS /INTERNET OPTIONS. You will see the following box on the left appear. Select Settings under Browsing history. You will then be brought to the screen shot on the right. It is here that you want to verify that you have selected the option to Check for newer versions of stored pages Every time I visit the webpage. In the event you ever need to delete or verify the existence of the cookie stored on your PC (our website navigation requires a user cookie for authentication purposes) you would again access the screenshot on the right. Under Current location is a button named View files. You would look among the listing of temporary internet files and cookies for a cookie named (your user name)@ If you are registered for access to the Agent Network, this cookie will contain your login credentials for web access to both websites.

5 Registration with SOS With cookies enabled and your browser always checking for new versions of pages upon every visit you are now ready to move on to our registration. SOS is now a new option found on the top left of the NVL System main menu. As a first time visitor to SOS you will need to register. Click the first instance of Click here to launch the registration page. A second similar link will bring up the document that you are currently reading. You will be brought to the registration page where you enter your user name, address and password.

6 After registration you will be returned to the log in page. Here you will sign in using the information from your registration. Please be sure to check off both the remember me and Auto Log in boxes before selecting the Log In button. Note: When you log in to the site the User Name is the First and Last Name that you registered with. The address is not used for the User Name. A successful login will create a cookie on your PC (thus, the reason why cookies need to be enabled in your browser). You will be brought to a generic home page. Please select SOS Web Pages.

7 Once you click the hyperlinked text (SOS Web Pages), your client should launch a new message pre populated with the recipient and the subject. All you need to do is to type in your name and agency account number, along with any questions you might have. There is a short delay while we assign an access level to your record. We will be looking for the from you (above). Upon our receipt of this , we will grant you access to the site. In turn, you will receive the below from National Van Lines. Please click each of the two links in the order listed. If the first link is not executed, the session started from your original log in will not permit you to move onto the SOS Web Page.

8 When you click the second link you will be brought directly to the SOS Web Pages. FROM THAT POINT FORWARD you should have access to the site directly by selecting the SOS icon located on the Agent Network. If at any time the log in information is required, it can be retrieved at the following link: So, finally you have access to the site. Let s walk through the pages.

9 When you select the OFFER A MOVE tab you are presented with a form to enter a shipment that you would like to be posted on the site. The information requested self explanatory. There is minimal validation to facilitate data entry. When the INSERT RECORD button is selected the new offering is written to the database and an is generated to all parties having registered with SOS. The screenshot below is an example of the that is generated each time a new offer is entered.

10 The OFFERS BLOG page provides you the opportunity to enter comments and questions about an offer. Those shipments that are available for transport have a hyperlinked shipper name. Click on the Shipper Name for any shipment you have interest in. Note that none of the data originally entered by the offering booker can be changed in the Offers Blog. The only data that can be entered on this page are questions and comments, which are submitted in the bottom dialogue box. Once submitted, the most recent post will appear at the top right, time stamped and annotated with the name of the submitter. Any submitted comments are ed to the shipment offeror, as well as to all parties having left messages previously. The comment area does not allow special characters. So if your comment will not submit, please look over your comment and delete any problematic character(s). An apostrophe is a typical culprit that prevents a successful submission. An automatic is generated by any successfully submitted comment and is sent to any party having participated in a prior discussion about the offer. Once you make a comment you become one of the parties that will receive any subsequent comments.

11 The next tab is the BOOKERS AREA. Here the offering booker can edit previously submitted information about a move. On this page the only shipments appearing will be those that you put in the system. To see all offerings you would use the OFFERS BLOG tab. Note that as a load date approaches on a move that has not yet been accepted, an automatic is sent to the party having offered the move. The party will then have a window of opportunity to change the load and delivery spreads. If the dates are not changed and the stated load date arrives, this move will drop off this listing. Note that once a record is brought up in the BOOKERS AREA, the booking offer can be retracted by de selecting the OFFER ACTIVE check box. Another reason you will be bringing up a move for change is to change dates on a move that has not yet been accepted by a hauler.

12 While the BOOKERS AREA restricts the view of records to that of the logged in booker, the Haulers Area is open to all logged in parties with one exception. As the site is not designed to process self hauls any shipments listed will be filtered to exclude any that were offered by you. When another party logs in, they will not have access to offers submitted by you in the BOOKERS AREA (as they had not offered it), but they will see the shipment in the HAULERS area. You may see the various views by trying out the site. The Thrifty Shipper move is selected by a prospective hauler. The next screen shot displays the record selected. The information that the hauler is able to submit consists of: the Load Date, any notes that he may want on record, and (checked by default) his acceptance to haul the shipment that is being offered.

13 The last step in the process is the generation of an automatic that provides the shipment details, who offered it, and who accepted it. This auto will be sent to the BOOKER, HAULER & designated NVL OPERATIONS personnel. Lastly, you will have a report as a hauler that lists those shipments that you have accepted to date.