Got Your Game Face Online?

You’ve got great people, an outstanding bricks-and-mortar facility and you’re a first-class trucker.

How’s your online presence? Is it as good as the rest of your company? It certainly should be. For one thing, these days, your website is your Yellow Pages entry. If you’re not online, you won’t be found.

But it’s much more than that. Your web presence is your calling card, your sales staff, your sales materials and your office décor, all rolled into one. It is every bit as important as the color or your trucks.

Your website’s features should add value to a visitor’s experience in a way that complements the services you are best at. And while not everybody can afford a website professional, it pays to at least know what you want.

One way of figuring out how to do it right is to emulate the best in the business, and in this field — guess what — Challenger Motor Freight’s site www.challenger.com seems to be as good as they come.

Check it out. (Lots of other outfits have websites that rock, too, but we’re using Challenger’s as an example because, well, because it just seems to work).

For one thing, visitors quickly get a handle on what Challenger’s all about. The site has something for anyone interested in virtually any end of the business. There’s quick access to Challenger’s services; you can read company history; if you’re a driver there are areas for you, and the same for customers or job seekers. The site makes it dead-easy to get in touch with Challenger.

A prospective driver can take a look at the company’s equipment, review the qualification requirements, check rates and evaluate the Challenger training program. If they still like what they see, they can watch a recruitment video, check out some clips of Challenger’s driver simulator and then apply online. (I recommend a visit to the site just to see that simulator in action.)

Meanwhile customers can download bills of lading, contracts or a credit application. There are also a number of pages dedicated to customs information.

Customers can stay informed of their shipment’s progress, based on real-time satellite locations and it’s updated every 15 minutes. Don’t you think you owe it to your customers to at least investigate how you, too, could deliver such services?

That’s but the tip of the Challenger iceberg. In the future, I’ll look at other outstanding sites as I come across them, but I must add — as Today’s Trucking’s webmaster — I’m encouraged to see companies like Challenger make as much of the Internet as they do of the Interstates.