Customers Make Web Demands Of Their Own

      "The customers aren't asking us for anything on our web site. Now they're telling us what we have to do on their web site,'' said Sue Baier, Marten's VP Information Services.
      "Just in the last three, four weeks we've had to train our company service reps on four different web sites,'' she said.
      According to Baier, some customers are backing away from EDI and other traditional methods of communicating with carriers. Instead they have created their own web sites where carriers must take the initiative to pick their loads, provide trailer numbers and other critical information, sometimes including appointment times.
      The process puts the communication responsibility on the carrier.
      "They'll no longer call us, they'll no longer send us faxes,'' said Baier.
      As the practice spreads, carriers are obliged to visit more and more customer web sites, increasing the workload for customer service and dispatch employees.
      Baier said she hopes there will be a way to automate this emerging business process. Meanwhile...
      "We accommodate them,'' she said.