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Getting drivers on a phone app without a fight

,6 min read

This guide is for a carrier moving drivers from phone calls and texts onto a dispatch app on their phones. What works: start with one driver and one real load, set the app up with that driver in person, and make the app the place their next load shows up. The sections below cover the objections you will hear and a one-week rollout.

The step between

Adding a driver is not the same as giving them the app

Putting a driver on the roster and getting that driver onto the app are two different steps, and it is easy to finish the first and stall on the second. The roster is office work you can do alone at a desk. The app needs the driver, their phone and ten minutes of their time.

The second step is the one that pays. The app is where a load stops being something the office types and becomes something the driver does, with every status and every proof of delivery arriving without a call.

The objections you will hear, and the honest answers

Drivers push back for reasons that are fair. Answer each one plainly, and only with what is true of the app you picked.

  • "You are tracking me." Ask your vendor exactly what the app reads. The ActionTMS driver app does not read the phone's location and has no GPS tracking: dispatch sees the statuses the driver sets, the files they upload, and whether the app is connected.
  • "Another app eating my phone." The ActionTMS driver app needs no app store. It opens in Chrome or Safari and can be added to the home screen like an app.
  • "More work for me." One button per step (Start Route, Arrived at Pickup, Loaded / Hooked, En Route to Delivery, Arrived at Delivery, Delivered / Dropped), and in return fewer calls asking where they are.
  • "There is no signal at the port." Status updates, uploads and messages are held on the phone and sent when the app is back online, as long as it stays open.
  • "Who pays for it?" Not the driver. Drivers never count as a seat on any ActionTMS plan, including the free one.

A rollout that sticks: one driver, one load, one week

  1. Pick the right first driver. The one who already texts photos of the paperwork. They will use it, and the others will ask them how.
  2. Set up the login with the driver standing there. Create the account, hand over the temporary password, and sign in on their phone together. Ten minutes in person beats any instructions sent by text.
  3. Add it to the home screen before they leave, so it opens like any other app.
  4. Dispatch a real load to it while they watch. Let them see it arrive, then walk the first status button together.
  5. For one week, that driver's loads go out through the app. Call less, not more. Ask for the proof of delivery as an upload, not a text.
  6. Then the next driver, with the first one there to show them.

What the office has to do differently

The app fails when the office keeps the old habits beside it.

  • Answer in the app. If a driver messages there and the reply comes by text, the driver learns the app is not where answers live.
  • Do not send the same load twice. A load on the app and in a text is two versions, and one of them will be out of date.
  • Watch the statuses, then trust them. When a status stops moving, ask about that load. Do not go back to calling every driver every hour.

Setting it up in ActionTMS

  1. An owner, admin or dispatcher opens Driver App from the account menu, then Access (or Set Up App Access from the driver's Quick Actions on the Drivers list) and creates the login with the driver's own email address.
  2. ActionTMS generates a temporary password that the office hands to the driver. Nothing is emailed.
  3. The driver signs in at actiontms.com/driver/login in Chrome or Safari and adds it to the home screen (Chrome: Add to Home screen; Safari: Share, then Add to Home Screen).
  4. The dispatched leg shows up on the driver's Today screen, and later ones wait under Loads, Upcoming Loads. Proof of delivery goes in with Upload Photo, bills of lading and other paperwork with Upload Document.

After you go live, Put a driver on the app is one of the steps on the dashboard's Set up your workspace card, with a 30-second recording of these screens beside it.

Not dispatching in a TMS yet? Start with moving dispatch off a spreadsheet.

Put it on this week's loads.

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