Trucking firms play a fundamental role in connecting supply chain elements inmany U.S. market channels, and firms of all kinds depend on trucks to pick up and deliver goods. Even though many products move almost entirely by way of ship, train, or airplane, almost everything is carried by a truck at some point during the delivery process (Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, 2009). Because of this, it is critical that managersin trucking firms continually strive to meet and exceed customer and shipper customer service requirements and expectations (Meixell & Norbis, 2008). While a review of the literature shows that many researchers addressed numerous aspects of transportation performance quality, few of these investigations addressed therole and impact that truck drivers have on service-quality perceptions (Vansickle, 2002). The purpose of this research was to examine whether cargo handling by truck drivers had aneffect on a company's service quality perceptions as perceived by the recipients ofcommercial cargo. The SERVQUAL instrument was used to measure the gap between truck drivers' determinants of service quality as perceived by the recipient of the goods fromthese truck drivers.The findings from the study suggest that it becomes necessary for managers to train these truck drivers in more than merely following a route or delivering goods. They needreal marketing and

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