Every drayage provider’s website says they’re responsive. It’s right there between “customer-focused” and “trusted partner.”
And yet here you are at 4:47 p.m. on a Friday, leaving your third voicemail, wondering if “responsive” means something different in their language.
The One Person Doing Everything Problem
Here’s what’s actually happening at a lot of carriers: The person who quoted your rate this morning is the same person dispatching your driver this afternoon while also trying to figure out why last month’s invoices haven’t been paid yet.
When one person is doing nine jobs, something’s getting dropped. It’s usually the thing you needed five minutes ago.
At Mark-it, we have actual teams. Customer service handles customer service. Operations handles operations. Dispatch handles dispatch. Revolutionary concept, we know.
This isn’t about being fancy. It’s about not having your urgent request compete with eight other urgent requests all aimed at the same person.
What “Responsive” Should Actually Mean
Here’s the difference between claiming you’re responsive and actually being responsive:
Proactive beats reactive. If there’s a delay, you should hear it from your carrier first. Not from your customer. Not from Twitter. From your carrier.
People beat phone trees. At Mark-it, when you need to escalate something, you call Matt, Kelsey, Scott, Mark, or Tony. Actual people. Who answer. And can make decisions without checking with someone who’s checking with someone else.
Accountability beats excuses. When something goes wrong—and in drayage, something is always going wrong—we tell you what happened, we fix it, and we explain what we’re doing so it doesn’t happen again. This is apparently rare enough to be a competitive advantage.
The People You’ll Actually Talk To
Customer Service handles your day-to-day communication. Operations manages terminal logistics and contingency planning. Dispatch coordinates drivers and handles real-time execution.
And then there’s Amanda. Amanda is our operations manager. Some customers will only work with Amanda. Not because others can’t handle their freight, but because Amanda has spent years being Amanda, and people remember when someone consistently shows up when everything’s on fire.
That’s the standard we’re aiming for everywhere. People remember names. They remember who picked up the phone when it mattered.
Why This Matters When You Grow
Right now we operate in Chicago, Kansas City, and Detroit. As we build toward a national platform, the challenge isn’t just opening terminals. It’s making sure the service in Market 6 feels the same as the service in Market 1.
That requires investing in people, systems, and infrastructure that scale without degrading. Because nobody wants to hear “well, our Detroit team is great, but Kansas City is… new.”
The Bottom Line
Drayage is organized chaos. The question isn’t whether something will go wrong. The question is whether your carrier will tell you about it before you find out from someone else.
At Mark-it, we have dedicated teams, real-time tracking via ActiveTrac, and leadership that answers the phone. When disruptions hit—and they will, probably today—we don’t wait for you to escalate.
Is your current provider actually responsive? Or do they just have a nice website that says they are?
See you at TPM 26.