Today, when the transportation of goods is carried out intensively, not only within the country, but also between countries, logistics – an important and profitable business. Qualified personnel, in such a business, very few. This activity allows you to work not only in the office, but also remotely – at home.
In this article we will consider how to provide trucking dispatching services working from home. What is needed for this and where you can learn.
Remote work in the trucking industry
The person who helps put you in contact between the owner of the cargo and the one who is able to make the delivery is called a dispatcher. Such intermediary services, with the proper organization of work, are able to bring in a tangible income.
It should be understood that the dispatcher has a huge amount of work associated with the need to process large amounts of information. In addition, the dispatcher must be able to make quick, informed decisions in stressful situations.
There are three ways in which a dispatcher can help with the movement of goods remotely. They are listed below.
Manager for the sale of logistics services. Such a specialist is engaged in finding and attracting customers. This employee should monitor trends in the market for logistics services and maintain a client base. In addition, managers conclude contracts and prepare reports. The income of such an employee consists of a minimum fixed salary and a percentage of the amount of completed deals.
Dispatcher. Such an employee constantly communicates both with the performers of orders and with customers. He is the link between them. The dispatcher’s daily duties include handling calls from customers, assigning a performer and calculating the cost of the performer’s work. As a rule, the work of the dispatcher is well paid.
Logistician. A logistician’s day-to-day responsibility is to oversee transportation, develop the most economical delivery route, and work with performers. This is the most skilled and difficult job of the three listed.
Training
In order to not learn from your mistakes, but to gain knowledge in a short period of time, it is necessary to be trained. How do you become a logistician? The answer to this question is simple – you need to be trained. This can be distance courses, webinars, and face-to-face courses with practice.
As a rule, training is paid, although there are free courses online. Spend time, money and effort on training, it’s absolutely worth it. Thanks to the knowledge you get, you’ll be able to find clients and performers much faster and easier. A specialist can easily navigate in all types of road transport, knows the most popular transportation routes and can easily calculate the most economical route.
So, what are the opportunities for training? Let’s look into it.
There are free courses on the Internet. For example, the course “Logistics” from the site Lectorium. This training course is designed by employees of St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. Training on the course will take about 4.5 months. The course consists of sixteen practical lessons and fifty video lectures.
School of Distance Learning “ESKO”. The course includes thirty journals, each of which is designed for two weeks of study. All in all, it takes about a year to complete the course. If you wish, you can complete the training more quickly.
It is possible to take full-time courses at the Moscow State Technical University. During these courses the students acquire knowledge of how to choose carriers, skills of work with tracking systems and how to calculate expenses for a trip correctly. Besides, the course program foresees a short practice in one of the transportation companies.
Besides training on special courses, a dispatcher needs additional skills, such as:
confident use of the Microsoft Excel program, as it is used to draw up documents and basic calculations;
foreign languages are not a required skill, but very desirable, as it will greatly expand the geography of partners;
ability to communicate competently and effectively with both clients and performers;
ability to remain calm in conflict and stressful situations;
good knowledge of geographical and climatic conditions of the regions where delivery work is carried out;
ability to work with maps and create a route;
ability to competently plan and distribute their work time.
Not only do you need to have all of these skills, but you need to improve them continuously. Working through and gaining the above skills will help greatly increase your income in an occupation such as work as a trucking dispatcher at home.
Income and Work Schedule
A job as a dispatcher has very high potential in the area of high income. But such a job requires an employee to be highly stress-resistant and able to process a lot of information.
A lot will depend on the skills to make quality decisions in stressful situations. Therefore, before you start mastering such a position as a job logistician at home, you need to weigh your options.
Income from such activities can be from 12 thousand rubles at the initial stage, up to 300 thousand rubles, gaining experience and the presence of a base of clients. In this case, if the trucking service dispatcher belongs to a fairly large company, the work takes place in shifts, usually a day or two. On average, the dispatcher receives about 60 thousand rubles per month.
Novice specialists are paid on average about 1000 rubles per shift. In general, the salary depends on the number of concluded contracts – the more clients you have brought together with the performers, the higher your level of income.
As a rule, the income of the dispatcher in the field of cargo transportation is from 8 to 25%, depending on the size of the order. The higher the cost of the order, the lower the percentage and vice versa.
Usually, the customers of home dispatchers are small companies that do not have their own car fleet. The search of executors for such companies and is engaged in the dispatcher transportation at home.
Where to start the activity? The best option would be to find customers who need to transport goods. Finding order performers is somewhat easier than truckers.
Home office equipment
Once you have gained theoretical knowledge through courses or distance learning, you need to take care of having everything you need for the job. How do trucking dispatchers work? They look for clients and select performers.
To do this, you need to have a computer or laptop, with internet access. In addition, you will need a smartphone, which is also connected to the mobile Internet. You may even need more than one phone in order to have a constant phone connection. Most of the dispatcher’s work is done on the phone.
The computer must be able to connect to IP telephony. For your convenience, you will need a headset for telephone conversations.
Since the dispatcher’s duty is also to draw up all the necessary documentation, you will need a printer and a scanner. An electronic signature will not be out of place at all, as it will simplify the paperwork remotely.
Search for clients
How to make money on trucking? First of all, it is necessary to find customers. The basis of the customer base will be small firms and businesses that do not have cars for the transportation of goods. In addition, organizations that provide services of freight forwarders or intermediaries for the search and lease of premises for warehouses are also potential customers.
Recently, the business of transport services is on the rise and brings substantial profit to their owners, and respectively, hired workers.
Summary
In order to engage in the work of the dispatcher at home, you do not need to have great knowledge and special skills. All the knowledge can be obtained in the course of work. Of course, at the initial stage, until you gain enough experience, you should not rely on a large income.
Find a job as a dispatcher, even for beginners, will not be difficult. There are enough vacancies of this kind at all the sites that are engaged in the placement of ads from employers. You can not only look for vacancies, but also send your resume to transport companies.
Such work will be interesting for people with disabilities, mothers on maternity leave and those who do not want to work in an office. You should not expect that if you have a main job, you can work as a part-time dispatcher. Such work requires a lot of time and effort.
