Why Driver Feedback Must Be Addressed Quickly

When you own a home, you own a ticking time bomb that could go wrong if not addressed immediately.

A hairline crack in the foundation isn’t a big deal. Until it starts splitting and water starts seeping through it.

A missing shingle on the roof isn’t a huge fix. Until the wood beneath it rots and turns your ceiling into a dripping mess.

In other words, it’s better and more productive to address a problem before it turns into a different, larger problem. And that’s true for your home as well as your business.

Why Act on Feedback Quickly

A survey published in the Harvard Business Review articulated what managers have thought for decades: it’s not enough to be good at your job. You have to respond quickly.

95% of top leaders were found to be both effective and quick. The fact is that both are necessary, and neither alone is sufficient, to be perceived as an exceptional leader today.

As Adam Fridman explains in an Inc.com article, It’s difficult to overstate the importance of speed in business.

We live in an age of near-instant gratification, where consumers are not-so-patiently awaiting the next big thing. We post something on Facebook or Instagram, and within minutes, we get feedback on its quality from friends.

And, when your drivers provide feedback to you, it’s expected that changes are made at the same speed.

If your business isn’t reacting to feedback with the same rate, you’re missing out on presenting yourself as a viable leader, and you’re not presenting your company in an agile light.

But when you fail to act upon feedback quickly, the results can be damaging.

What Happens When You Act Slowly

Driving is a volatile job. Your drivers are on the road for days and weeks at a time, away from their families. Everything you and their dispatcher says resonates in their head on those lonely stretches of highway.

On Tuesday, they might be members of your team. But something could happen on Wednesday that irks them—and by Thursday, they’ve turned in their truck keys. That’s just the speed of business. It’s imperative to address the issues your drivers have when they’re 20% frustrated, before those frustrations turn into anger and an early departure.

Everyone wants to have a voice—to feel like they’re being listened to. And even if you’re collecting feedback on a yearly or monthly basis, chances are, the opportunity to correct that issue has come and gone.

In a company with high turnover rate, reacting slowly to driver feedback will cost you dearly. Just like your house, failing to make a small repair at an initial time will ripple outward to an expensive problem. After all, the cost of replacing one driver is between $5,000 and $8,000. Multiply that by dozens of drivers, and you’ve got a costly issue.

And it could have been fixed if that driver feedback would have been acted on more quickly.

The Fastest Way to Get and Address Feedback

Your drivers are posting on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter all the time, and they’re getting feedback about the things they post there.

So why not meet them where they already are—on their smartphone?

Instead of waiting for another yearly driver feedback survey, try WorkHound—the mobile driver retention platform that moves as fast as you do.

When you can get immediate feedback directly from drivers, and turn that feedback into actionable insights to improve your business and your drivers’ experience, you’ll get the bottom-line results you need from an engaged team of drivers happy to stay on your team.

Find out how WorkHound helped one carrier save over $500,000—download this impressive case study.