Check Call

A check call is the old-school method of tracking freight: someone on the logistics team picks up the phone (or sends an email) and asks the carrier or driver, "Where's my load?" It's the most basic form of shipment visibility, and for decades it was the only form. Before ELD mandates, GPS tracking, and API-based status feeds, check calls were how shippers stayed informed about in-transit freight – and for many small to mid-size operations, they still are.

The typical check-call workflow goes like this: a logistics coordinator reviews their active shipment list, identifies loads that haven't had a recent update, and contacts the carrier's dispatch or the driver directly. The driver reports their location and estimated arrival, the coordinator logs the update in a spreadsheet or TMS, and the cycle repeats – often multiple times per day per shipment. For a team managing 50 active loads, that's potentially dozens of calls daily, each consuming five to ten minutes when you factor in hold times, voicemails, and callbacks.

Check calls are labor-intensive, unreliable, and inherently reactive. The information is only as accurate as the driver's estimate, it's outdated the moment the call ends, and it creates no structured data trail for analytics or carrier performance evaluation. They also scale terribly – doubling your shipment volume means doubling your check-call workload unless you invest in automated tracking. The ELD mandate and the proliferation of carrier API integrations have made check calls largely unnecessary for shippers using modern visibility platforms, though they persist as a fallback when electronic tracking gaps occur or when working with smaller carriers that lack technology integration.