Jill Silvers

i have several motor clubs, agero and swoop are the only clubs free for swoop dispatch, if you want other digital dispatch, you have to pay

Swoop dispatch, which is a horrible joke of a company, has stated that I will lose call volume from Agero if I leave swoop. Swoops software doesnt work properly, you can never talk to a real person, and im just over it. I cancelled my paid subscription to them, and am manually putting in calls from other motor clubs., because og our early stage, we depend on Agero calls. Is there any truth to losing volume by making the switch to towbook?

So, they said buy a tow truck, they said, it'll be profitable they said..... Well, we did, about 90 days ago we bought a tow truck and put it to work trying to carve out just club tows, and go for volume. We could not have hired drivers and survive with out the clubs to lean on, and thats just a fact. Ive read all the horror stories about Agero. Fact is, if you bill honestly and do your job the way you're supposed to they are hands down the leader for work. If we had 2 trucks, we could run Agero jobs all day. Are we under paid, yes, but under payed running 21 hours a day is better then getting top dollar and running 3 hours a day. They get over on us from time to time, but that's experience. I spend A LOT of time on hold, hand holding to be sure we get what we have coming thru the proper channels. They are very difficult to be in contact with, and its a full time job just dealing with them. They want you to communicate, but they are too cheap to hire enough people to effectively manage a territory. We use Swoop to dispatch. Horrible company to work with, they have even less staffing, are impossible to get a hold of, their software has glitches that cost me money. If I could use any other software i would. They talk in circles, follow thru with nothing, and I pay them so I can get digital dispatch from NSD Quest and Swoop themselves. NSD took 2 months to get on with. and it took a post on here to get it done. Patrick, good guy. I dont' even mess with my regional as she is not at the top of her game. I go to Patrick, it gets done. Downside to NSD...they offer no volume. I could not survive on them while I could and can surviving w Agero, and NSD is filler. their billing is time consuming. Their calls are mostly, for us, either far to fetch and deliver, or just long deliveries, which loaded miles are great, but a 90 mile dead head is a 90 mile deadhead. and i can't take my bread and butter calls. Quest sends us nearly nothing, maybe 1 or 2 calls a week. Swoop, 1 or 2 calls a week, NSD 3-4 calls a week. Agero, 50-80 calls a week. Swoop doesn't pay their bills, and have recently told them not to even dispatch to us anymore. I was told that all Agero calls will go thru swoop and that going to towbook, I would start losing volume. Not a chance i can take, but Swoop dispatch, tech support, live support and phone support is HORRIFIC. Were on with a couple other services, but they send us nothing. Agero, while the list of bullshit is long, by far has the work. They do make it impossible to be better though. If you're honest about your eta, they hit you, if you tell them what they want to hear, they hit you. Swoop dispatch sends out surveys and i get 90% returned, Agero sends out surveys, i have 14 responses out of 364 calls. but they base our performance on this? Strange. there's no easy way to take your truck out of service for maintenance or breakage, you can do it, but it effects your performance non. without us, they are just a call center with people that need help and no one to dispatch to. That's my take on the first 90 days.

were just starting, weve tried hourly, salary, and have recently moved to a daily minimum or a percentage of the truck, which ever is greater. This seems the way to go. they know were just getting started, and they know its only gonna grow from here. We have one roll back, and 1 service truck, and a lowboy single car carrier as well as an enclosed trailer. We turn down virtually nothing, and are on board with several insurance companies and looking to add on more. as the trucks get recognized and seen, the phone is starting to ring without an insurance agent on the other side. We pay very little attention to the eta, because most base call creation on acceptence(which is dumb) and then they lie to the customer. Our fix for that has been contacting the customer, explaining the situation and the actual wait time, and let them decide if they want to cancel or wait for the service. Obviously i push for waiting for us because we are top shelf, but im not leaving an older person sit on the interstate for hours because theyre call came in after an unattended to a closed facility. i communicate with the customers and it seems to being doing us well. as we continue to grow, (were building a truck, and putting another back together) so will our reputation. Thats the point where we start cutting off the fat. I have a 5 star BBB rating, and am associated with many other warranty companies in my auto repair shop. We specialize in the warranty work, quality, and turn around. we balance our books several times a week, monthly when were filing sales tax,and have P/L information on every month folder. theres 2 numbers that we monitor, what came in, and from whom, and how much did it cost and why. we are constantly changing the way we do things as we learn. If the customer calls and cancels, it does not count against call exceptance....almost everything else does. our trucks are averaging roughly a 40% profit, weekly. if we miss our target, we find out why and adjust accordingly. like i said, ran a wrecker for years, first time owning one, but once you understand the system, make it work for you. if it isnt, the only person that can change it is the owner. my truck hooking for 40$ and enroute loaded miles absolutely pays the bills, and as long as my partners and I are diligent about calling and getting addons, we do well for ourselves, well enough we know we need more trucks.

thanks for the info, and i was just giving you a hard time...its what i do lol

lol, we want to go, but other than a date, we dont have a location or i missed it?

Hello. Not new to forums, just new to this one. We have an 07 F650 cummins/allison/jerrdan rollback with wheel lift. Low profile single car hauler, 2007 Dodge Ram 2500 4x4 service vehicle, and are building a new Wrecker recovery vehicle as we speak. We are currently located in Riverside Oh, but have just bought a new location in Centerville Oh. I also own a fabrication shop, and full repair service at same location. We are keeping our equipment moving thru various Roadside services providers until were established. Agero is our main client, but we get stronger every day. As our fleet and capabilities increase, we look to grow quickly. Lots of valuable information here, and looks like a pretty good group of members. Be safe out there, and operate from the ditch anytime you can....