Delivery Appointment

A delivery appointment is a reserved time slot at a warehouse, distribution center, or retail receiving dock that specifies when a carrier should arrive to unload freight. Appointments exist because dock capacity is finite – most facilities have a limited number of doors, a fixed labor crew, and a maximum number of trucks they can process per day. Without appointments, trucks show up whenever they arrive, docks get overwhelmed during peak hours, and drivers sit idle during slow periods.

Appointment scheduling involves coordinating between the shipper (who knows when the load will be ready and the carrier's estimated transit time), the carrier (who needs a window that aligns with their driver's hours of service and route), and the receiving facility (who controls dock availability). This three-way coordination has traditionally happened via phone calls and emails – a process that's slow, error-prone, and difficult to scale. Key data points include the requested date and time window, PO or reference numbers for validation, carrier and driver information, load type (FTL vs. LTL, dry vs. temperature-controlled), and any special requirements like liftgate or team unload.

Missed or poorly managed appointments have direct financial consequences. Retailers like Walmart, Costco, and Target enforce strict appointment compliance with chargebacks for early or late arrivals – fees that can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars per occurrence. Even outside retail, missed appointments create detention charges when drivers wait beyond free time, disrupt receiving operations, and cascade delays through the rest of the day's schedule. The shift toward self-service carrier scheduling portals – where carriers book and manage appointments directly based on real-time dock availability – has dramatically reduced the coordination overhead and improved on-time arrival rates for shippers who adopt them.