Larissa Lemke
Activity
Reviews
101 reviews · average 3.5
I've been using Saddle Creek for about three years. What really stood out was their parcel optimization - the system automatically re-boxes and reroutes shipments to hit lower zone boundaries, and that tweak knocked roughly 10–12% off our parcel spend once we tuned the rules. It wasn't perfect at first; the EDI mapping with our TMS needed a couple of back-and-forths and a weekend of troubleshooting, but once the ruleset was right it just kept saving money quietly. For a fleet handling regional pickups and last-mile handoffs in the Northeast, that cost reduction added up fast. Not flawless, but their parcel optimization made the change worthwhile for us.
What impressed me most was the tracking portal's real-time geofencing alerts - those tiny pop-ups changed how we plan driver windows. I run a fleet of 50 trucks in the Northeast and on a recent week the alerts cut our detention time by nearly half because the office and driver got the same ETA updates at the same moment. One load coming out of a busy Hartford crossdock would have sat an extra three hours if not for the automatic pre-arrival notice that let us pre-clear paperwork and move a driver to a better dock slot. The only gripe is the mobile app can glitch in low-cell areas and spit delayed geofence events, which frustrates dispatch when we’re tight on layover. Still, the visibility gains let me schedule tighter and sleep a little easier - four stars from me.
Bottom line: Nippon Express’ customs brokerage cut our import dwell time by nearly 48 hours and kept a production line from stalling. We had a last-minute ocean shipment with mismatched documentation and their broker spotted the issue before the vessel even docked, got the amended docs pushed through and cleared customs the same morning. I manage a 50-truck fleet in the Northeast and after 18 years you stop being easily impressed, but that kind of proactive action saved us overtime and detention fees. Their status updates were short and blunt - no fluff - which made it easy for our yard coordinator to plan. Five stars for the customs team; if you move time-sensitive parts, this is the part of their service that actually pays for itself.
We rolled up at Port Newark at 2 a.m. to meet their onboarding rep - he never showed and our driver sat idle for three hours with no gate pass. After 18 years running a 50-truck operation in the Northeast, I expected a clearer startup process; instead we waited two weeks for portal credentials and watched paperwork disappear into slow email chains. That hiccup cost us overtime for drivers, a missed pick-up slot, and a $900 detention charge that the billing team refused to waive - small money to them, real pain to my margins. Every call bounced between dispatch, sales, and operations and nobody owned the onboarding checklist; instructions changed mid-week which exploded the schedule. They may know drayage, but getting started felt chaotic and expensive, and I won't trust them with time-sensitive loads until they fix their onboarding and billing handoff.
Bottom line: Getting started with Redwood Logistics was mostly painless and worth the effort. Their onboarding specialist did the heavy lifting - they mapped our carrier IDs and pulled in the last six months of rates so I didn't have to hand-match dozens of lane codes for a fifty-truck fleet, which saved real time. There was a snag with EDI mapping that cost an extra week; the portal is powerful but has quirks. Now that RedwoodConnect is talking to our dispatch system, day-to-day runs smoother and the human rep still answers the phone when the tech stalls. I'm comfortable giving them a solid 4/5.
Last Tuesday one of our drivers sat idling outside a DC for five hours because SEKO’s dashboard stubbornly showed the POD as pending while the receiver had already canceled the appointment. That visibility glitch cost us roughly $850 in detention fees and a screaming phone call from the broker - not exactly the kind of surprise you want mid-week. The timestamps in their portal never matched our ELD logs, and exception alerts arrived hours late or not at all, so our routing decisions were made with bad data. I opened a ticket and got polite canned responses with no real troubleshooting; by the time their rep called back the money had already been billed and the customer was furious. Tech-forward claims mean nothing if the tracking is unreliable - fix the status accuracy and alerting and you might keep partners like us.
I've used Priority1 for about nine months. The short version: for what they charged us, the price simply wasn't worth it. They quoted competitive truckload rates up front but invoices kept showing accessorials and surprise handling fees that pushed our spend roughly 12–18% above what we budgeted, which actually shrank margins rather than helping them. Their cloud TMS carries a monthly fee and pretty tracking, yet it didn't stop rate creep or reduce fuel/exception charges - so we were paying more for visibility and getting no real savings. For a 50-truck Northeast fleet this turned into an expensive experiment that I won't repeat.
I've used Allen Lund Company for about six years. What really stood out was their heavy-haul permit and route-planning team - when we needed a 145-foot combine moved across three states for my fifty-truck operation in the Northeast they handled permits, escorts and tight DOT windows without falling apart. They kept a single planner on the job who answered texts at odd hours, called DOTs directly, and rerouted on the fly when a last-minute bridge restriction popped up; that accountability saved me hours of phone tag. My only gripe is their permit billing line items, which took a billing cycle to reconcile, but for complicated oversize moves they consistently deliver.
I've used FedEx Logistics for seven years. It isn't the cheapest option out there, but for the most part the price has been worth it. With a 50-truck fleet in the Northeast and nearly 18 years in the business, predictability in monthly costs mattered more than the lowest spot rate. What really made me happy was the itemized monthly invoice - duties, brokerage and freight were separated clearly, so our accountant stopped chasing mysterious charges. Customer service can be slow on exceptions, but the steady lanes and volume pricing translated into dependable savings for us.
Bottom line: switching to Universal cut our cross-border dwell times and headaches by about half. Before this we were tied to a big national broker that lived in dashboards - lots of emails but no action when a load got held; Universal’s customs team actually picks up the phone and gets documentation fixed on the spot. After 18 years handling a 50-truck fleet in the Northeast, that kind of local know-how beats shiny tech features any day - saved us detention fees and kept customers breathing easy. Their owned assets are a plus, sure, but the one-call-to-clear attitude at the border is the single thing that made me happy. Five stars from me.