NEWSLETTER


Hi team:
Q3 has been a considerable period for us. We’ve smashed goals, received numerous recognitions for our hard work, and laid the groundwork for the next phase of EASE.
This quarter, we surpassed $200 Million, going above and beyond our projected revenue goals with four months remaining in the year. We have also officially closed on our new headquarters at 6000 Perimeter Dr. in Dublin. The office will provide more space and parking to accommodate future growth and provide a collaborative environment that enables us to elevate our brand all under one roof.
Toward the middle of September, I set out on a customer tour to introduce our current customers to our new solutions and service options in preparation for the upcoming proposal period. EASE is making changes as we see opportunities in the market to grow and improve how we align with our customers’ needs.
Discussions within the leadership team are ongoing as we plan to become a $1B company.
I am always amazed by what we accomplish. As a team, we consistently exceed our goals and expectations and positively impact our industry, community, and each other. Thank you for all you do!
Let’s close out the year with a bang!
Cheers,
Breanna
Andrea
Cody
Connor
Keith Brown
Dylan Dubena
Amber Engle
Jon Hagwood
Erin Henry
Nicholaus
Chris Miller
Jacob
Jonathan
Pedro
Tanesha
Xan Whetro
Sterling
Leah
Ben
Chris
Jeffrey
JD
Matt
Leah
Reed
Carrier Admin.
Manager,
Collin
Elijah
Elizabeth
Lucas Rapp
Tyson Sloan
Konrad
Carrier
Operations Coordinator
Account
President of
Huge congratulations to these employees on their recent achievements.
Nikki Daugherty and Stacie Melody earned their
master’s degrees from Ohio University this quarter.
Mat Birdsall has been elected to the Ohio Trucking Association Board.
Know
TAKE A LOOK BACK AT ALL OF THE AMAZING THINGS WE DID AND ACCOMPLISHED IN Q3!
1. 2. Click to play
We did it! We surpassed $200M in revenue with all of Q4 remaining. We gave back to our community in a multitude of ways:
NBC4 Stuff the Backpack: We collected, stored, transported, and packed supplies for Stuff the Backpack. We hosted two stuffing events in our 6141 warehouse, where volunteers stuffed 30k backpacks for the kids!
Wounded Warrior Golf Outing: We held our first annual golf outing with proceeds benefiting wounded warriors and their families at the Golf Club of Dublin. The event was completely sold out!
EASE x Crew x Mid-Ohio Food Collective Food Drive: Throughout September, National Hunger Awareness and Action Month, we teamed up with the Columbus Crew to raise food and money for the Mid-Ohio Food Collective.
#GIVEwithEASE Impact
$27,000+ donated to local charitable organizations in Q3!
Wounded Warriors Golf Tournament
NBC4 Stuff the Backpack
A rendering of our new HQ at 6000 Perimeter Dr. in Dublin
3. We purchased our new Global HQ at 6000 Perimeter Dr. in Dublin. Read more. EASE's new HQ will be a multi-use campus. The revitalized building will allow us to grow our business while offering employees an engagement center, grab-and-go cafeteria, and comfortable team work spaces. Our new location will also feature a community event space to host fundraisers, meetings and events.
4. We received multiple regional and national awards recognition. Read more.
What Does Intel’s Investment Mean For Ohio And The Supply Chain? EASE Logistics Is Now The Official Logistics Partner Of The Columbus Crew EASE Logistics Named A Top 100 3PL Provider By Inbound Logistics EASE Logistics Claims Position On The Acclaimed Inc. 5000 List Of Fastest-Growing Private Companies For Fifth Year
David Helton Chosen By The National Defense Transportation Association As Its Inaugural Virtual Chapter President Award-Winning Excellence: EASE Receives Recognition At Regional And National Levels The EASE Monthly Mile
Thank you for supporting our EASE x Crew x Mid-Ohio Food Collective #GIVEwithEASE Food Drive throughout September leading up to the match.
We had fun and made a difference while doing it!
We’ve had an extremely productive Q3, mainly setting us up for the next phase of EASE’s growth. This comes in the form of new positions, operations adjustments, and innovation opportunities. Please see a variety of these changes below.
Director, Customer Operations: Ben Benfield
Ben has been promoted to the Director of Customer Operations and will be responsible for the continuous management, tracking, and operational compliance of class verticals.
Director of Support Operations: Leah Kracht Leah will be transitioning into a roll that will help maintain our after-hours and weekend shifts to ensure consistency and compliance of our processes and procedures. In addition, she will help to scale the shifts in parallel to the increased volume.
We are wrapping up the testing phases of the new operation structure that we will be moving toward in the later part of the year. There are multiple teams analyzing the data so that we can appropriately allocate resources to the current team as well as have a plan for future resource deployment.
See the following page for the breakdown of our new solutions and operations structure.
Telecom: EASE’s new phone system will continually build and improve how we communicate with our customers, carriers, and partners. Kudos to the IT team for setting this up!
Below is a high-level overview of the operational changes that will take place over the next few months. We have received tremendous feedback from operations that helped shape and define this new approach. For immediate questions, please reach out to your respective director or manager.
The goal: Clear, reorganized logistics operations to fluidly allocate qualified resources based on customer opportunity.
Timeline: The deployment will be spread out across Q4 with plans for a full go live by Jan 2023.
Wewillplacecustomersinoneofthefollowingfourverticals:
SmallandMidsizeBusiness(SMB):Aleanlevelofsupportwithmaximumflexibility, servingasanintroductiontoEASE'scustomerservicemodelthroughdedicatedcustomerservicepersonnel.
Mid-Market:Asupportlevelsimilartohowwenowoperate,includingflexibleanddedicatedpersonnel. Thiswillincludeanelevatedneedforrequestsandschedulingwithanopportunitytoallocateshared resourcesforsupportshifts.
Enterprise:Dedicatedsupportteamsforspecificaccountswithminimalflexibility.Thiswillbeour flagshipteamstructure,demonstratingprovencustomerserviceexpectationsandcontinuedperformance.
Government:Averticaldedicatedsolelytogovernmentcontracts,operatingsimilarlytotheMid-Marketvertical.
Account Management (AM): AMs will work individually or as part of teams to service accounts assigned to the new customer verticals based on qualifications.
Client Services (CS): CS will eventually transition to a dedicated and shared department and will be utilized for customers that qualify for their impact.
Customer Service Representatives (CSR)/Flex: CSR and flex will be assigned to teams within the new verticals to assist the shared or dedicated resources when volume spikes occur.
Support Operations: 2nd, 3rd, and weekend teams will be shared among verticals or dedicated to specific teams based on qualifications.
EASE doesn’t just book freight! We have three distinct solution offerings: Transportation, Warehousing and Distribution, and Dedicated Fleet
Dry van Temperature-controlled Over dimensional Specialized Hazardous
Dedicated and regional
trucks
vans
Ditch the headaches, reduce costly overhead, and minimize non-productive hours through managed logistics solutions customized for you.
New updated slide: Click here
I am proudly stepping into my new role as the Vice President of Solutions, where I am responsible for the continuous compliance, tracking and execution of operational processes across all departments. I am monitoring the day-to-day operations, auditing department efficiencies, and ensuring the accuracy of performance reports and key performance indicators (KPIs). Generally, I am leading, guiding, directing, and evaluating the work of other employees, such as senior directors and managers, and ensuring a healthy working environment.
You will see me more hands-on in sales innovations, strategic business development, and the profitability of EASE as determined by the company's strategic goals. My goal over the next few months is to ensure we are creating a cohesive ops structure to support and grow our business on the road to becoming a billion-dollar company.
The Account Management team is getting more educated within the market and leveraging that knowledge to positively impact EASE through load volumes, revenues, and margins. We've had many additions to the EASE team, which pulls people away as they are helping with shadowing or teaching their tricks of the trade. However, it hasn't stopped account managers from increasingly engaging with their customers. I am also honored to be promoted to EASE’s new Director of Customer Operations, where I will be responsible for the continuous management, tracking, and operational compliance of class verticals.
In September, EASE hit the highest load volume in one month – a record load volume of 12,285!
The Walmart meeting was a massive win for the team. Overall, the experience was a great opportunity to be in front of a top customer, which is an accomplishment in itself. The Walmart leadership team was very complimentary of how we have grown with them and want to continue to give us freight.
Rivian has grown extensively in loads run month over month for five straight months, now standing at a load volume of over 20% since June.
In Q3, Gov Ops welcomed a 2nd USPS contract commencing operation in July within the Bloomington, IN area for four years. On August 24, Crowley Logistics visited our operations terminal to present an award to the Gov Ops team for their work supporting the USTRANSCOM awarded contract. The group continued this success alongside FEMA, ensuring that 13 trailers of water and 12 additional trailers were positioned for aid in the country's southwest corner. We continue to make strides as we get the EASE name out and into the Department of Defense (DoD) and Defense Industrial Base (DIB) community as a trusted service provider in the transportation sector.
EASE's first annual Wounded Warrior Golf Outing was a success on August 21 at the Golf Club of Dublin. EASE is now included in the Defense Transportation Journal and distributed to the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and each respective commanding general within every DoD and DIB entity.
In Q3, we continued to grow and evolve the accounting team! We added nearly half a dozen new team members in accounts payable and accounts receivable, implemented new processes and protocol, and set some new records! See details on these below.
We are working through a large process documentation project focusing on Associate Chartered Accountant accessorial procedures. We implemented a new automation process that helped drive efficiency in processing large batches of carrier payments. We set some new records!
Loads imaged in a week: 3,910 Rendition billing (invoices sent in a week): $10,308,609.38
Client Services continues to grow! We added Sterling White (a new hire) and Chris Brady (an internal transfer) to the team in Q3; they are already making an impact. All 2022 new hires quickly evolved from hitting their weekly KPI numbers to now holding each other accountable by way of friendly competitions and challenges. We're seeing improved results both on an individual and team level.
As of September 30, the department has built 39,000 loads in Q3, equaling more than 94,000 loads in 2022. As of now, we're on pace for 100k loads by the end of the year!
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Error Resolution SOP has been completed for use by the Client Services department to maintain more consistent and error-free EDI messages to our customers.
All of operations consistently grew throughout Q3.
Carrier Operations: Reached a new all-time record for loads booked in a week -914 -- while still maintaining 32% of all freight booked for EASE Logistics!
Carrier Administration: Changes to the market have allowed us to reevaluate our onboarding process. We have made adjustments to the requirements before onboarding a new carrier and now find ourselves booking more freight with preapproved/setup carriers.
Carrier Sales Representatives (CSR): Having hired in our largest class of operational-focused employees, brand new CSRs are averaging 14.5% margin and just beginning to develop their salesmanship.
BOG: Added a new manager, Monica Triana, to represent EASE in Bogota, Columbia, where we continue to maintain 33% of all check calls. Monica will help us improve that metric and ensure quality of check calls meet the EASE standard.
Logistics Flex Support: This team continues to grow and prove to be the perfect assist-and-support for Account Managers. Each team member is averaging more than 400 reps a day!
Support Operations: As the new Director of Support Operations, Leah Kracht will help to develop the team as EASE continues to hit new highs in customer volume. Collectively, support teams have generated $1,093,779 in margin throughout Q3.
The Business Solutions team focused on several initiatives in Q3. We released a Confidential Customer Profile document that collects valuable customer data and how EASE can better serve them. A Customer KPI board was established and documents Volume, Revenue, Margin, Conversion %, and Utilized Solutions. Data Analysis and request for quote (RFQ) developments are also in the works. We also worked with the operations and leadership teams to establish customer placement metrics.
The team onboarded 13 clients.
75 RFQs were completed.
40+ tickets were completed for data analytics.
The Carrier Scorecard (ESIT project) is being rolled out to the Carrier Ops team.
The Customer Journey Process Doc has been developed. Created a process document for business solutions to move customers through the EASE customer journey.
In Q3, the IT team was busy mitigating risk, solving unprecedented issues caused by EASE’s internet service provider while still moving 40 active projects forward!
Handled an unprecedented incident during IP changes without notice causing no major system outages. The team got all systems operational again by the end of the day!
Added another IT Systems Team Member, Cody Boisvert, to continue to increase the team's support and developmental capacities. Worked with McLeod to hold them accountable for performance and support standards.
The HR team has been busy with some great activities in Q3 while preparing for 2023 benefits plans based on the feedback gathered through our company-wide survey. Thank you for taking time to fill it out! We are working hard to review the plan options that fit our employees' needs. Expect to hear updates at the end of October or the beginning of November.
HR sent out an employee benefits survey and gathered feedback from all of EASE on its benefits.
EASE has reached a midsize company level for benefits plans, which means EASE will have more plan options available to choose from and possibly at a lower cost.
The Strategy and Innovation team had an exciting and busy Q3 preparing for multiple company-wide projects to close out 2022 on a high note!
6141 Avery Road is scheduled to be move-in ready on October 10! Most of our administrative and operations support teams will be making the move down the street.
Ohio Loves EASE! We partnered with JobsOhio, One Columbus, and the city of Dublin to structure economic development plans as we grow toward becoming a $1B company, showing that Dublin and Ohio want us working here just as much as we want to be here! Both incentives plans were approved on September 26th.
3D Printing: EASE partnered with IC3D, a local 3D printing company, to identify innovative applications of 3D printing in the logistics and transportation industry. Visit them in our 6141 warehouse!
Attended a day-long event with Sustainable Ohio connecting with industry leaders and learning about what EASE can do to lessen our impact on the environment and focus more on sustainability.
Marketing: The marketing team completed over 80 projects and worked with departments across the company in Q3 to create sales and HR materials, pitch decks, EASE messaging, large campaigns, awards submissions, and more!
Have a marketing request? Submit it in EASEOne at least 2-weeks in advance.
Training: The training team onboarded 23 new employees in Q3 and welcomed our new Training Coordinator, Amber Engle. The team has been working hard revamping training materials to better align with operational needs and preparing for a large October new hire class.
Corporate Development: ESIT is currently working on 6 open projects! Find out more about the latest ESIT projects to be rolled out in Josh’s ESIT update below.
In Q3, the EASE marketing team prepared new collateral for your reference and use. Click each item below to access these new assets and resources on WikiEASE.
Problem: We've recently had several claims due to temperature abuse of product – more often than not, these are service failures on our end, and the cost can be very high financially and in terms of our relationship with the customer.
Goal: To put safeguards in place to ensure we're effectively servicing customers with temperature-sensitive freight.
After a lengthy investigation, EASE enacted safeguards in the form of new, reefer-specific Check Calls in McLeod that appear at specific points in the lifecycle of a load.
Example: When dispatching a driver to a pickup, a Check Call will automatically appear that requires the EASE Team member to confirm the temperature to which the reefer unit is pre-cooled. These temperature-specific prompts also appear when departing each pickup to ensure appropriate and consistent temperature at these critical points in a shipment.
Document and training materials are also being updated to stress the importance of confirming equipment type and temperature more explicitly when talking to drivers at every point of shipments moving temperature-sensitive freight.
Goal: To create and locally store an internal scorecard for carriers.
About: Carriers accrue action-based points as identified by the ops team. From there, two scorecards are automatically generated: an Internal Scorecard and External Carrier Scorecard. Carriers will be graded based on a rolling three-month timeframe.
Progress: We rolled out the Carrier Scorecard to all Carrier Operations. The new Carrier Scorecard is a powerful tool designed to quickly display up-to-date metrics that provide a clearer picture of a Carrier’s overall performance and dependability. The Scorecard will be an asset to Operations Team members trying to cover loads and serve as an essential indicator of which step each Carrier is along the Carrier Journey.
Since first rolling this out in the last newsletter, it has become a robust tool, consisting of more data points and information. You can find the scorecard guide and use case examples on WikiEASE.
SUBMIT AN ESIT PROJECT
Have an ESIT project idea? CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT IT ON EASE ONE.
We are expanding Carrier Ops by adding a specialized service department. We brought in Jon Reist to help jumpstart this department and have already seen growth around a few of our specialized equipment types. Carrier Ops has averaged a 28% booking percentage over the last three months with a steady increase month-over-month of 1% (June 27%, July 28%, August 29%).
A new record set of 827 loads were booked in one week (8/15-8/19). Mackenna Adams secured 1148 loads at 9.5% of EASE total freight for August. Way to go, Mackenna! Finalized the Specialized Services Playbook, Click Here
Our team is exceeding expectations with carriers! Jeffrey was promoted to Senior Carrier Administration Rep and has pitched several significant projects and ideas to ensure the carriers in EASE's network are compliant. William is coming up on his one-year mark and continually shows how much he has learned and grown since joining the team.
Just over $250,000 open claims were paid and resolved in Q3! All claims have been switched over to Monday.com, which has been a great way to keep Jamie (Paralegal) and Heidi (Accounting) involved in the status of claims.
The team has consistently kept 90% of its carrier network active and is on track to have updated over 10,000 carriers in Q3.
Carrier Administration's vetting procedure has successfully caught scammers and double brokers before being booked on EASE's loads
We recently implemented a new plan to mitigate risk with new carriers and are excited to see how this process impacts operations in Q4! (See details on the following page.)
The current market has led to increased deceptive, fraudulent, or questionable business practices from some for-hire carriers. Due to the surge of activity, EASE is raising security vetting standards and implementing a few operational changes. This is to decrease risk, improve customer service, and save time on the backend from a compliance and tracking standpoint.
Below are the main changes. Please share them across teams.
Executive approvals: Please send all carrier setups to Carrier Administration for initial vetting. If the carrier requires executive approval, Carrier Administration will trigger the request if qualified. In short, Ops does not need to be approved by executives before sending it to Carrier Administration.
New setups: These will be limited. Any additional approvals needed for a carrier onboarding will only be considered once 10 carrier offers are in the shipment.
Onboarding Afterhours: We will limit carrier onboarding for the 2nd, 3rd, and weekend shifts. We will require 10 carrier offers before the carrier is reviewed if onboarding is needed.
Onboarding duration: Setting up a new carrier will take 1-2 hours now. Please plan accordingly.
If you have questions, please reach out to:
was a successful quarter for our team. Due to the current truckload market, the volume of new customers was down, but the quality of those landed was high! We welcomed Courtney Palmer who brings five years of logistics experience to the table and has already shown that she is here to help EASE grow!
Q4 approaches, the team is doing all we can to position EASE in front of as many customers as possible before the annual request for proposal (RFP) season. The team's goal is to get in with some
Communication KPIs - Provide an internal way to set special payment terms or reporting for specific bill-tos or carriers.
CARRIER OPS Carrier engagement/Journey - Finalize, deploy, and train the carrier journey (increase experience).
CLIENT SERVICES
Inclusion in the bid process and scheduling. - Link Carrier Ops with customer and analytics for bid process (carrier RFQs).
Qualified Resources - Qualify customers for logistics ops based on opportunity set.
CLIENT SERVICES Scheduling software/automation - Identify, source, and build an IT solution to help automate/track the scheduling process.
CUSTOMER OPS
Qualified Resources - Qualify customers for logistics ops based on opportunity set.
Increase WFH stability and phone systems - Invest in new or revised WFH platforms with less latency and restrictions. The phone system transition will have a waterfall effect on call groups and more to mitigate missed calls and other issues.
IT Development capabilities and data center -
Increase internal capabilities for development. Link up with Dublink for the data center.
We have added a new drop-down box to the Settlement Payee profile with various pay term options. Justen/IT is working on creating a Power Bi sheet that will enable accounting to sort by those specific payment terms, quickly export the information from Power Bi, and then import it into McLeod. We are not only creating a way to better service our carriers but also saving time! We have a list of carriers we will be testing this out on and will have a process ready to roll out soon.
Once the most recent training is wrapped up, the team will start working on the last piece of the Carrier Journey.
Establishing a new Carrier Ops capacity manager position that will be involved in the bid process. Once this position is finalized, the team will partner with Kyle Borngrebe and Business Solutions to make sure. Carrier Ops is included as needed.
In progress. Updating Monday.com boards monthly and sharing with the EASE executive team to help determine and redefine CS resources allocated to customers.
Final steps with ESIT before rolling out Scheduling SOP/KPI in Sept. which will track the scheduling process.
Currently expanding and developing an operation to fit the needs of EASE's internal customer growth along with all new customer onboarding. Collaboration is ongoing with the Business Solutions team as a customer scorecard is being developed to ensure proper placement of new and current accounts. This scorecard will help EASE recognize how much support and resources may or may not be needed for a customer.
Work-from-home stability is tied to the data center initiative and will significantly increase once done. The phone system is in the initiation and moving to user acceptance testing, and the timeline for production release has been moved to the end of Q4.
Increased developmental capabilities by onboarding a wide variety of talented IT personnel. Some projects include the EASE phone system leveraging custom workflows, Automated Bidding Bots, and multiple application integrations. The data center initiative is in flight, with anticipated completion in October.
OPS
Rigid resource allocation - Develop vertical logistics ops teams based on opportunity set. Set clear expectations for logistics ops revenue KPIs based on headcount and qualified customers.
Rigid resource and support allocation running with qualifying resources are in progress. Currently, a support structure exists with the Operating Manager leading a team of Logistics Operations Coordinators, some with a Client Services specialization, to meet the needs of our customers. EASE's volume growth has forced the team to develop this further, adding layers of support for the Enterprise teams. These layers will allow EASE to allocate resources and support as it grows strategically.
OPS
Fluid shift turnovers - Introduce sign-off or automated shift turnover process tied to KPIs.
Internal Marketing Team - Define internal marketing org. chart and share it with the company.
EASE's new Director of Support Operations, Leah Kracht, is finalizing a department checklist for each shift transition. Each shift operating manager must sign off on dayto-day tasks being handed off properly. Leah will be training the account managers to ensure that work offloading will be done correctly and seamlessly.
The internal marketing org. chart has been created and is undergoing reviews before being shared with EASE All.