I've used Redwood Logistics for about two years. Their support used to be the reason we stuck with them, but lately it's been a mess: tickets sit for 72+ hours, calls bounce between teams, and nobody owns exceptions when a load misses its appointment. For my 120-truck Midwest fleet, one unattended pickup and a slow response last quarter cost roughly $3,200 in detention and a lost retail slot, and billing still hasn't been corrected because every person I talk to says "it's escalated." Account rep turnover means I explain the same problem from scratch each time, then get short, scripted answers that don't solve anything. If you need fast, accountable customer care during real-world breakdowns, Redwood isn't delivering and it's hitting our bottom line.
Moshe Frami
Activity
Reviews
86 reviews · average 3.6
When a Kenco-managed DC billed us $9,400 for two hours of “emergency” labor after a conveyor jam that took twelve minutes to clear, I assumed it was a billing error. It wasn't - those surprise fees, peak-day premiums and opaque rate rules added nearly $28,000 to our quarterly spend with no measurable uptick in on-time deliveries. After 25 years running a 120-truck fleet in the Midwest, I can tell when a provider is charging for theater instead of actual help. Their talk about automation and analytics sounded slick, but paying triple for a ten-minute fix is not worth it. We shifted volume to a regional operator and cut that waste fast; won't be bringing the rest back until their pricing gets transparent and tied to real results.
One night last winter, with three trailers stuck after a bridge closure and a customer demanding dawn delivery, ArcBest rerouted the loads through a different hub and had everything there two hours early. I’ve managed a 120-truck fleet across the Midwest for 25 years, so I don’t hand out praise lightly - what really made the difference was a single coordinator who stayed on the phone and kept everyone moving. Their driver network knew the backroads and alternate ramps, so pickups were shuffled without me having to micromanage. Paperwork lagged once and cost us a bit of time, but the shipments arrived when they were promised. Four stars - rates could be tighter, but when we needed someone to make a hard deadline, ArcBest came through.
Funny thing - their support actually answers the phone and doesn't pass you between bots. I've been running a 120-truck fleet in the Midwest for 25 years, and getting an account rep who knew our lanes, jumped on a Friday to re-route a stranded grocery load, coordinated with the carrier, and kept me updated every 20 minutes was the single thing that made me happy enough to keep using them. It wasn't glitzy; just a real person doing the work and not promising magic. Their portal could use clearer detention reporting and ticket replies sometimes take a day, which is why it's a 4 and not a 5. Still - when the pressure's on, those folks get it done, and that matters to fleets like mine.
Bottom line: Kerry Logistics showed up when it mattered. We had a container stuck in customs two days before a scheduled plant cutover and their U.S. brokerage team cleared it the same day after pulling missing paperwork and getting on the phone with CBP, which kept our assembly line from stopping. I manage a 120-truck fleet in the Midwest and after 25 years in the business I can tell you partners who actually move when the clock is against you are rare. Communication could be tighter - proactive status updates were sparse and I had to call twice for an ETA - but the one win (same-day customs release) outweighed that. For cross-border pain points between Asia and the U.S., Kerry gets my confidence.
I've used Arrive Logistics for about three years. Price is the metric I watch first - especially with 120 trucks in the Midwest - and Arrive sits in that mid-market sweet spot: not the cheapest, but rarely the surprise bill that kills a lane. What made me happy was their fuel surcharge breakdown; seeing the line items on every invoice cut disputes with our accounting team by half. On a few tight seasonal runs they matched capacity without jacking the rates astronomically, so for predictable budgeting it was worth the fee premium. I dock a star because one peak week a promised van showed up late and we ate detention, but their quick invoicing and straightforward credits kept it at four stars.
Bottom line: PSA BDP’s real-time hazardous-material exception alerts cut our compliance headaches and stopped fees before they started. After 25 years running a 120-truck fleet in the Midwest, I was skeptical, but their platform pushed instant mobile alerts with the corrected paperwork and electronic shipping papers to drivers and customs - that prevented two holds in a single month. The alerts are shockingly specific (they’ll say “missing UN number on line 4” instead of a vague “issue”), and each message links directly to the exact form my dispatcher needs to correct it, which speeds fixes from hours to minutes. UI for some of our older drivers took a little coaching, but the time saved at docks and the avoided fines made that training trivial. If your operation hauls regulated loads, that one feature alone is worth the switch.
After 25 years managing a Midwestern fleet of 120 trucks, I brought Mode Global in when our detention costs started eating margins. The feature that really made a difference was their live load-visibility - the map, rolling ETA updates and the automated reroute alerts that pop up when a terminal or crossdock goes sideways. Because of those timely push notifications we were able to divert a couple of runs before drivers sat idle, and detention claims dropped roughly 25% over a quarter. My only gripe is the mobile map can be sluggish during peak periods; drivers reported it freezing for 30–60 seconds a few times, which is annoying on the road. Still, for gaining real-time control over problem loads, this tool earned them four stars from me.
What impressed me most was their tracking portal - hands down the clearest carrier dashboard I've seen. The live map, progressive ETA updates, and event timestamps actually cut down 'where's my load' calls when the ocean leg moves, and that saved our dispatchers real time. But the shine wears off on inland drayage and rail connections; data drops, delayed scans, and the platform’s inability to show PO-level splits forced us to pick up the phone more than it should. I manage a 120-truck fleet in the Midwest and have been at this for twenty-five years, so I notice when a good visibility tool still leaves blind spots that ripple into driver detention and planning headaches. Mixed feelings - when the portal works it's genuinely helpful, but inconsistent inland feeds make me hesitant to lean on Maersk for full end-to-end visibility.
Pricey - and I kept asking myself if that extra spend actually bought us anything meaningful. Their U.S. warehousing and multimodal freight options are competent and the digital platform gave us better shipment tracking, but freight forwarding rates plus accessorials bumped our monthly costs roughly 18% over what we were paying before. I've run a 120-truck fleet for 25 years in the Midwest, so billing quirks stick out, and CEVA's invoices were detailed yet sometimes hard to reconcile with the contract. I'm genuinely torn: we avoided a handful of costly misroutes thanks to better tracking, yet for routine lanes the premium felt tough to justify. Three stars - worth a trial on critical lanes, not a wholesale swap if you’re watching the bottom line.