Missed pickups can be a real headache for LTL (less-than-truckload) shippers, potentially leading to detention fees, delays, late deliveries, and, ultimately, customer dissatisfaction. And misses are becoming increasingly common in today’s fast-paced, dynamic warehouse environment, where shippers often need more scheduling leeway than their carriers can provide.
Now one company is looking to mitigate the problem. Warp, a Los Angeles-based provider of tech-enabled middle-mile service, has launched Pickup Grace, a new service that it says replaces the rigid, unforgiving nature of LTL shipping with something radical—a little human grace.
Warp says its new service builds in the one thing traditional carriers don’t have—flexibility. If one of Warp’s carrier partners arrives for a pickup and the load isn’t ready, it doesn’t just leave, the company explains. Instead, the driver will wait for at least 30 minutes while someone calls the facility contact to try to straighten things out. And if more time is needed, the company says it offers a “second chance,” an additional grace period to get the freight delivered—“no auto-fails, no blame, no ghosting.”
The new service is now standard for all LTL shipments booked through Warp’s nationwide network of more than 10,000 carriers.
“Pickup Grace is a direct response to how LTL carriers operate today; indifferent, transactional, and deadline-driven to a fault,” Daniel Sokolovsky, CEO of Warp, said in a release. “We don’t just show up. We make sure the pickup actually happens, even if that means we wait.”
