Unfortunately this article from Logistics Management skimps on details, but I found it interesting nonetheless:

Lowe’s designed its distribution centers with “driver friendliness” in mind and has a written policy to be friendly and courteous to all drivers, according to Steve Palmer, vice president of transportation for the Lowe’s Cos. “What does being friendly and courteous cost?” Palmer says. “It doesn’t cost us anything.”

Friendly DCs
Lowe’s DCs are designed to be clean, friendly “visitor centers” to work with drivers to lower their turnaround costs and reduce idling time. Lowe’s measures all gate turn times in order to maintain timely receiving cycle times, he said.

“It’s friendly to the driver but it makes sense to us to reduce these cycle times,” Palmer said.

It was refreshing to see this concept being reported on, as it is something that rarely makes headlines. There is a lot to be said for treating your vendors and their frontline employees with respect and kindness. That’s not to say they don’t deserve a good kick in the rear end when they screw up, but I’ve found that most vendors respond well to kindness and respect.

In my younger years in the industry I worked with a person whose philosophy was that the only way to get the drivers and trucking companies to get the job done was to hound them incessantly. Drivers could expect at best indifference and more often than not endure a lecture about customer service or at worst a verbal lashing if it was felt they did something wrong. No effort was made to make their jobs easier, in fact my colleague went out of his way to make their lives miserable if he felt that they were not doing a good job.

While he managed to get things done, we rarely had a regular driver, dealing with different drivers often. The vendor rarely visited us and never extended us any favors or special services.

On the flip side I worked in another office that did things much differently. Whenever possible they took the time to ensure a dock was available whenever they knew what time a delivery was coming in. We concentrated on driver turnaround times and always made sure the drivers had access to simple amenities such as coffee, sodas, and snacks. Often, particularly if it was an important delivery or pick up, one of the supervisors or managers would go out to the warehouse and introduce himself to the driver and engage in some friendly chit-chat, get-to-know you questions, etc. At the end of these seemingly innocuous conversations the supervisor or manager would make a simple demand or ask a “small favor” in regards to the cargo. We also double checked our documentation and ensured everything was correct so that the driver could pick up or deliver his load without any problems - again, the emphasis was on improving turnaround time. This, possibly more than anything, gained the trust and respect of the drivers. It got to the point that drivers working for the same company would fight amongst themselves and their dispatchers so they could handle our loads; they knew their carrier drops and deliveries would never get held up due to improper paperwork and when they came to our dock they were taken care of expeditiously and treated in a respectful and friendly manner. Some of the drivers would go out of their way to express their appreciation, for example making us the first stop on their delivery list or assisting one of our customers with a special service without indicating it on their bill of lading.

Most of the time this “friendliness” strategy worked, but of course there were always a few vendors who did a poor job or had a negative attitude no matter how nice you were to them. In those cases we simply stopped doing business with them.

Both methods worked: criticising and hounding vendors for the most part pushed them to get the job done and treating vendors with respect and a friendly attitude improved turnaround time and gave the vendors incentive to do a good job. But while both methods garnered results, the latter was much better at establishing and maintaining long term relationships.

Stumble it!