Dispatch Companies vs. In-house Dispatch: Which one should you pick for your business? 

This week, we want to discuss and compare the differences between hiring a dispatch company vs. doing in-house dispatching. 

As one of the industry leaders, Ninja Dispatch has had years of experience working with trucking companies of all sizes. From the small husband-wife owner operator to the large trucking company with a fleet of 100s or 1000s of trucks. Whether the company is large or small, both consider whether to do the dispatching themselves or to externalize the job to a dispatching company like Ninja Dispatch. 

In this article, we’re going to discuss some key points that a trucking company should take into consideration when looking to outsource their dispatching. We’ve taken into consideration the outlook of what work will be like in the future and also factored in that remote work is becoming more and more common as well as cost-efficient across many industries. This guide will give you a cost-effective analysis of what costs are saved when choosing business process outsourcing. 

Let’s take a look at some different things that any company should consider when considering outsourcing to a dispatch company. 

Human Resources – finding, interviewing and hiring new dispatchers

Human Resources, or HR for short, is the company department charged with finding, screening, recruiting, and training job applicants, as well as administering benefits – according to Investopedia.

When working with a dispatching company, you don’t have to invest manpower into hiring new dispatchers because that task has been outsourced.

As an example, let’s say you need to hire a night dispatcher to work the evening and night shifts. This position has extremely high turnover due to the not-so-ideal working hours. Many trucking companies struggle to find a quality and reliable dispatcher to work the night shift. What’s even harder is to keep them around and avoid a high turnover rate. 

A dispatching company has its own HR and hiring department that scouts and hires new dispatchers to work on an account. This can be extremely beneficial to a trucking company that has a variety of different departments and responsibilities. They no longer have to spend time interviewing and assessing candidates for a dispatching position because that job has been outsourced to a professional truck dispatch company. 

Training –  turning the grasshopper into a mighty Ninja

Once a dispatcher is hired, the next step is to train them and bring them up to speed with company procedures. 

This can include:

• Learning and understanding the TMS (truck management software) like McLeod, Toro, or Samsara.
• Company workflow – how does the company keep track of loads and drivers?
• Learning a new ELD system and how to provide track and trace updates to brokers and customers. 

Training a new hire is very important yet very time-consuming. For difficult-to-fill positions such as a night shift dispatcher, it can be extremely stressful having to train and then retrain new hires because an old one has quit. Not to mention that the shift is less than ideal for a manager to work supervising a new hire. 

Take into consideration that a new night shift dispatcher will need to be trained during the night shift. This means that if you choose to do dispatching in-house and you hire a new employee, you will need to have two dispatchers working that shift. One that already knows the job and the trainee who is learning. 

A question any trucking company will want to ask themselves is: is it worth it to hire and train a new night shift dispatcher? To do this, a company needs to break down the costs and time it takes to find, hire, train and retain an employee. A night shift position requires higher pay, so that also needs to be taken into consideration, along with the fact that the trainer will also need to be compensated.

If an owner-operator is just getting started in trucking, it would be more cost-effective to outsource the dispatching – at least at the beginning. There are many ins and outs that can only be learned in time and experience. By doing it in-house, an owner-operator could incur a lot of extra costs that could have been avoided if they had experience. 

For a larger trucking company, it becomes cost-effective to externalize the dispatching of certain positions, such as night dispatch. Although the cost for an individual dispatcher may be more expensive than outsourcing, rather than doing it in-house, the overall cost savings are incomparable. 

At Ninja Dispatch, the cost of a dedicated after-hours dispatcher also includes hiring and training. Our dispatchers do one job and one job only – dispatch professionally for trucking companies across the country. This means that for the cost of one dispatcher, a company also gets a manager that is supervising, making sure that things are running smoothly. 

A concern of any trucking company is about the control and supervision of their workers. How can they make sure that everything within their company will go ok if they’ve outsourced a pivotal position? This is why on any shift, there is not just one or two but multiple dispatchers along with a dispatch manager that overlooks the entire operation. Our managers are logistics experts and decision-makers that think about a company’s needs first. We understand the complexities of running a trucking company and what is needed to communicate effectively with all parties that are involved. 

Office Location: The true costs of where your business is located

Let’s talk about your office and how this affects your overall ROI as well as the quality of your talent pool that you can choose from. 

To have a dispatcher in-house means that you’ll need to have an office space, as well as equipment to provide for the dispatcher to do his/her job. The cost of equipment may not run that high. However, office rentals are becoming increasingly more expensive. Energy costs, heating, cooling, and water bills also come into play because you will be having an employee in the office at that time. 

There is also one more extremely important factor to take into consideration when discussing the topic of an office. Your location has a direct relationship to the quality, quantity, and cost of candidates that you can choose from for any position your company would want to hire. 

If an office is located in a rural area, companies will have a much harder time finding candidates and will probably, at one point or another, run out of people that are capable of even doing the job. 

If an office is located in a city, you’ll have many more candidates to choose from, however, the cost of employing someone is more expensive than in rural areas. 

Any shift that isn’t a normal 8 or 9 to 5, will also reduce the quality of the workers that a company will be able to find. A good employee that is also smart will obviously want to work during normal business hours. Trucking companies that require 24/7 round-the-clock coverage will have a hard time finding trustworthy dispatchers within the geographical radius of their business. 

Given all these factors, it’s pretty easy to see how a company can save money by externalizing and outsourcing their dispatching. 

Why outsource your dispatching with Ninja Dispatch?

At Ninja Dispatch, we are a team of experienced dispatchers that have worked with some of the world’s leading carrier and brokerage companies. We pride ourselves on quality communication and professionalism when representing our clients. 

We offer a cost-effective solution to companies that are looking to outsource their night and evening dispatch. By having transatlantic offices in Bucharest, Romania our dispatchers are waking up, and drinking their coffee when carrier companies in the USA are getting ready to go to bed. One of the key advantages Ninja has been the time zone in which our office is located. We have a very low turnover rate among our dispatchers, and work/life balance is a priority for our company culture.

By having offices that are located in Europe, we are able to find highly qualified dispatchers that have experience working in the USA market and are eager to work a normal shift. Companies no longer have to spend their money on HR fees, training, management, equipment, and much, much more. 

If you have any questions or are interested in the services that we provide, please feel free to email us at office@ninjadispatch.com for more information.