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Last Updated on July 26, 2024 by Team Experts
With more people buying products online, companies worldwide are looking for truck delivery drivers to help them fulfill their orders.
If you love spending time on the road, a career as a delivery truck driver might be perfect for you. Your responsibility is to deliver goods on time and with utmost care.
Depending on your company, the goods you carry can be anything from food and parcels to any other thing that can be delivered by vehicle.
Remember that you can travel long distances or locally, depending on the nature of your work.
Where to start?
The first step to becoming a delivery driver is to get a license if you don’t already have one. If you will be driving a regular car or small truck, a standard license is enough, but if driving larger vehicles, you may need to attend further training and sit an examination to earn a commercial driver’s license.
Besides having a valid driver’s license, the company you are looking to work with might also ask you to have the following:
- High school diploma or GED certificate
- Clean driving record with no traffic and moving violations
- Proficiency in driving and parking large vehicles
- Physically fit and strong. This is so that you can easily lift the different loads you carry. Most companies will ask that you be physically fit to lift 50 pounds easily.
- Dependable and hardworking. No company wants to work with someone they can’t rely on.
What are your responsibilities?
As a delivery truck driver, you have plenty of responsibilities that include:
- Ensuring that the inventory available matches your delivery requirements
- Loading and organizing the product inventory from the warehouse and into your vehicle. You also should unload the products in and out of the truck as required.
- Ensure that all the products are delivered in a timely manner
- Collect the signatures and payments, if necessary, upon delivery of the goods to the recipient
- Keep the vehicle organized, clean and tidy
- Maintain the truck and ensure that it remains in good driving condition
- Follow the scheduled route for daily deliveries
What skills do you need?
To expertly execute your role, you need to have a set of skills. They include:
Pro-driving skills: It goes without saying that you need to be a good driver. After all, this is where you will spend most of your time. You need to know what you will do when you get behind the wheel of your car, truck, or van.
The experience you get on the road is usually enough, but you can always get additional training, such as attending a driving school to attain defensive driving skills that make you a better driver.
Dependability: As mentioned above, this is one of the aspek penting dalam lowongan sopir truk employers look for when looking for drivers. You must ensure that you are dependable for the company to continue hiring your services.
If you are a full-time delivery driver, you should always show up early in the morning for the daily deliveries.
On the other hand, if you have your car and do the deliveries part-time, always show up at the time you agreed on. The last thing you should do is wait for the company representatives to look for you.
Excellent communication skills: You need to communicate professionally with the people you will be interacting with. For example, you need to communicate with the client that you will be delivering the product to, the warehouse attendants you will be collecting the products from, your supervisor, and any other person you will be coming across in your day-to-day activities.
As a rule of thumb, you should effectively communicate verbally and in written form. This is why most companies require drivers to have a high school diploma.
Good with customer care: The same way you need to have good communication skills is the same way you need excellent customer care skills. As much as you spend most of the time on the road, you will have to interact with the customers, which is vital for the business’s success.
As they say, the customer is king, and how you (the driver) interact with the customer significantly determines whether they continue working with the company.
You must be professional when interacting with customers and always make them feel valued and vital to the business. You also need to be enthusiastic as you are doing the deliveries. After all, no one wants to deal with a rude and unfriendly person.
As much as you have to maintain professionalism and an upbeat personality when doing your deliveries, you should know how to deal with an unhappy client. Rarely will you always have a happy client. Sometimes you will find a client in a gloomy mood. You might also find a client angry about a late package.
You need to know how to handle such a client professionally. Thankfully, most companies train their drivers on what to do when they encounter such situations. When you encounter an unhappy client, follow the guidelines given by the company you work for.
Good planner: As a responsible delivery truck driver, it’s up to you to map your route depending on the deliveries you need to make. As you plan the route, consider any disruptions, such as traffic and road closure, that might come in the way and throw you off track.
Parting shot
If you love being on the road, you should highly consider a career as a delivery truck driver. The good thing is that you can work with your or your company’s car as long as you have a license.
As you apply for the positions, choose a reputable company. You must have heard some companies charging interview fees, right? As you can guess, these are out there to scam you.
Take time and find a reputable company that pays you well and respects your input.
Of course, you need to be professional to get the job. You need to be an excellent communicator, dependable, a good planner, and someone that can work with minimal or no supervision. No company wants someone that they have to follow around to get anything done.
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