If you aren't aware of Internet based Truck Driver Forums, you should be.
These electronic forums serve as opportunities for drivers to post their thoughts (and more importantly read the thoughts of other drivers) concerning the good and bad points about working for current and past trucking company employers.
Not important? Think again. Some of the recent posts on The Truckers Report (Link to Truckers Report) concerning trucking companies have approached 100,000 views. That's a lot of potential drivers influenced towards or away from your company.
In this forum, there are two areas of particular importance:
- Report a Bad Company here
- Discuss Your Favorite Trucking Company here
Without revealing to which area a particular company was listed, here are some of the stats:
- Swift - Views: 76,859
- TMC Transportation - Views: 97,799
- Schneider National - Views: 66,979
- J B Hunt - Views: 44,054
- etc...
Virtually every large carrier can be found at this and other forums. So what should a carrier do? If you are sincerely interested in improving Driver Recruiting and Driver Retention, here's my recommendations:
- Monitor Driver Forums on a regular basis.
- Respond to those posts that are inaccurate. Be honest and up front with forum members. Identify yourself as a company official wanting to 'set the record straight'.
- Be honest and up front with yourself. Take note of the consistent complaints and find ways to fix them.
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