We rerouted two loads last Tuesday after a supplier suddenly shut its dock for inventory - Coupa showed the supplier as “active” for twelve hours afterward, and two drivers drove into a closed facility. That mistake cost us about $1,200 in detention fees and lost a hungry customer who refused to wait, plus a handful of angry calls from operations. I run 25 trucks in the Midwest and have four years of experience; the platform’s attempt to pull purchasing and logistics together falls flat when live feeds lag and alerts don’t actually trigger. The dashboard looks tidy, but it felt like data arrived in bulk after the fact - alert thresholds I set never fired. Support took two days to respond and kept passing the ticket; by then the damage was done, and I don’t trust Coupa for time-sensitive supply chain decisions.
Adella Labadie
Activity
Reviews
92 reviews · average 2.7
Yesterday a container bound for our Des Moines hub jumped from an ETA of Tuesday to Saturday on ShipsGo with no explanation, and the live map froze for 40 minutes while drivers sat idle. That single glitch added a 12-hour layover and about $450 in extra driver wages - money we didn’t lose with our old provider, TrackLine, which at least kept ETAs steady even if its UI was clunky. I oversee 25 trucks across the Midwest and have four years running this fleet, so basic reliability matters; ShipsGo’s phantom ETA shifts and delayed notifications are more disruptive than any minor annoyance. Dispatch got confused when one driver was rerouted twice because the app showed two different arrivals; we missed a slot at the port because of it. Test it in a real busy week before switching - this one incident cost us time and money.
Honestly most of our shipments with StarBriges are boring. Pickup confirmation. A couple updates. Delivery confirmation. I would like to keep them boring please.
Last winter, during a holiday surge, one of our critical medical shipments missed its carrier: total chaos; with a 25-truck fleet in the Midwest, getting it moving again was on me. Vics Forever picked it up within three hours and kept the same dispatcher on the line until it cleared customs in Detroit. What made me genuinely happy was that single point of contact who didn’t ghost us: hourly updates and an honest ETA that didn’t slide. The delivery arrived inside the window and the clinic had the gear ready for use when they said they would. Reliability mattered on that run, and Vics Forever proved they’ll show up when you need them.
Mostly reliable, but not when it mattered most. They hit delivery windows on routine West Coast runs and their fulfillment tech made tracking orders easier, so the normal weeks were smooth. Then the holiday crush came and we had two late loads and a mis-routed pallet that took three days to surface - by then my drivers were burning deadhead miles and a key retailer missed replenishment. Customer service moved quickly once we pushed, but getting that escalation accepted took too long. We've run 25 trucks out of the Midwest and after four years with them I'm torn: they clear up a lot of small headaches, yet they wobble under pressure, so plan backups if you can’t afford surprises.
Honestly, not worth the sticker price. We signed up because their pitch promised scalable, tech-enabled solutions, but after four years managing a 25-truck fleet in the Midwest the invoices kept ballooning with opaque fuel surcharges and accessorial fees. One month we got hit with $7,200 in detention and re-bill charges for loads that sat because their routing changes added hours to drivers' days; that wiped out the margin on three customers. Customer service shrugged and pointed to the contract, and whatever flexibility they promise didn't translate when the bill arrived. If you're watching every dollar like we are, this felt like paying premium rates for mid-level execution - not worth it.
Last Thursday a promised 8 a.m. pickup for a refrigerated load never arrived, and Coyote's tracking status sat on "dispatched" for six hours while my customer called and fumed. I manage a 25-truck fleet in the Midwest and that silence cost us a missed retail appointment, $450 in detention fees, and an extra 120 miles of deadhead to patch the failure. Their platform eventually showed location pings, but there was zero proactive communication - no ETA updates, no carrier reassignment, nothing - so I had to scramble to find a spotter and burn time and fuel. After four years in logistics I've learned to expect hiccups, but when reliability fails like this it directly hits our margins and trust, and Coyote didn't come through when we needed them most.
Booked a time-sensitive chemical haul with Odyssey and watched it unravel the morning our driver was scheduled to pick up. Managing a 25-truck fleet in the Midwest for four years, I rely on partners who actually answer the phone - Odyssey's dispatch went quiet and the carrier they promised never showed. We had to rebook on the spot at roughly 30% higher spot rates, picked up two days of detention and missed a retail appointment that cost us a slot and a customer's trust. No meaningful explanation followed, just automated status updates that never matched reality. Bottom line: when reliability mattered most, Odyssey didn’t show up - and that failure hit our bottom line and my drivers' schedules hard.
I manage a 25-truck fleet based in the Midwest and have been running the routes myself for four years. We switched to CJ Logistics America hoping for better visibility, but their tracking is sluggish and often gave us false ETAs compared to the regional 3PL we left - that mismatch cost us two missed appointments in a single week. It wasn't just the delays; we ate detention fees and had a major retail customer threaten to cut lanes, which translated to real dollars and a lot of angry phone time. Support was frustratingly slow, with tickets languishing and calls passed around between teams like nobody owned the problem. For the money and the promise of a bigger network, this felt like a downgrade; I'm seriously considering going back to the smaller outfit that at least answered the phone and kept our schedules honest.
When a pharma shipment sat on the dock because customs flagged the invoice, Nippon Express had it released the same afternoon after one phone call. Before this we’d be waiting 48 hours while our old broker sent form emails and nobody answered the drivers; that delay used to wreck a day’s worth of Midwest runs. My fleet of 25 trucks noticed the difference immediately - not because paperwork magically disappeared, but because there was a single contact who actually explained what they did and why it mattered. That swift brokerage response shaved hours off a chronic bottleneck and kept delivery windows intact. Five stars for fixing the one recurring headache that used to cost us time and fuel.
Twenty-five trucks and four years in the Midwest freight game taught me to expect hiccups, but last month Ascent cost me a contract. We booked an AOG aerospace part on an expedited lane; their PEAK dashboard showed the trailer rolling, yet the load was sitting in a yard for eight hours because their brokerage team filed the wrong HTS code and it got held at customs. My plant was down for two shifts, I had to throw $4,500 at an emergency rebook and the customer slapped a $9,000 downtime charge back at us - people lost overtime and trust. Calling Ascent was worse: three transfers, agents pointing fingers between operations and brokerage, no clear ownership or timely correction. I won’t use them for mission-critical runs again unless they fix their paperwork QA and stop trusting a dashboard that reports movement when nothing is moving.