Behind The Cutting Edge: Traditional Service
While Jim Davidson looks to a digitally integrated future, some customers still want — and NTE still provides — service the old-fashioned way. For instance, C X Roberson, the van division of Roberson Transportation, has been using NTE for more than a year, usually conducting business by phone
"The main thing they help us out with is trying to reposition our equipment back into the areas where we have our own in-house customers set up, for example the Denver, Colorado area. We have customer freight there, but there are times when we do need help getting trucks moved back out. We'll contact NTE,'' said Jeff Umland, Roberson's customer service manager.
According to Umland, CX Roberson, Inc. runs 340 trucks, all 53-foot, air-ride dry vans. A sister division, PFT Roberson, Inc., runs a fleet of flatbeds while Roberson's Worldwide Logistics Services is a 3rd-party logistics provider.
Roberson has a web site at www.robersontrans.com where customers can track shipments on the web. Even so, Umland said he talks to NTE almost daily by phone.
"I'm at our main headquarters in Champaign, Ill. Say I have a specific area that I know I'm going to need some help with. For example, I'm going to have a van in Montana on Monday, which is a rarity for us. So I will call NTE this afternoon and say, I'm giving you a heads up. I'm going to have a truck out in Montana. So they know it's going to be there and they can work on it,'' he said.
The phone calls go both ways.
"They also call us and say, hey, I have a load in such and such an area. Can you help me? Depending on what our equipment status is, either we can or we can't," Umland said.
NTE is different from a load-matching services, Umland said.
"We actually bill NTE directly. They take care of billing whoever their customer may have been that is paying them,'' he explained.
Unlike a standard load-matching service, NTE executes the transaction. Roberson need not contact the shipper.
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