Freight Forwarder Case Study: Automated Quoting
How a mid-size freight forwarder cut quote turnaround from two days to six minutes for standard lanes, with intake that collects the right details the first time and pricing pulled from the rate sheets it already had.
Overview
The client is a freight forwarder handling ocean and air shipments between Asia, Europe and the US West Coast, with a six-person operations team. Quote requests came by email and web form, usually missing something: dimensions, Incoterms, a pickup address. An operator would reply asking for the details, wait, then price the lane from one of five rate spreadsheets. Two days was normal. Customers with a shipment ready did not wait two days.
Gain Rhino built quoting into the CRM. Intake asks for everything a quote needs, in the customer's language, and will not submit until it is complete. Standard lanes are priced automatically from the forwarder's own rate sheets, with surcharges and validity dates applied, and the quote goes out as a branded PDF with a link to accept. Non-standard requests go to an operator with the complete details already gathered.
Research
We reviewed 200 recent quote requests. Seventy percent were for lanes the forwarder had priced dozens of times. Sixty percent arrived missing at least one required detail, and the back-and-forth to collect it accounted for most of the two-day turnaround. Win rate on quotes that went out within a day was noticeably higher than on those that took longer.
We consolidated the five rate sheets into one structure the system could read, with the operations lead owning updates. Standard lanes were defined by origin, destination, mode and equipment. Anything outside that, or above a size threshold, routes to a person. Quotes carry a validity date and an acceptance link, so a customer can confirm without an email thread.
Result
Standard-lane quotes now go out in minutes, complete and priced from current rates, at any hour. Operators handle the complex requests with all the details in front of them. Customers accept from the quote itself, and the pipeline shows every quote and its status.
By the numbers (first 90 days):
- Median time from inquiry to quote, standard lanes6 minutes, down from about 48 hours
- Quote requests submitted complete on the first try100%, up from about 40%
- Quotes priced without an operator68%
- Quote win rateup 28%
- Rate spreadsheets in use1, down from 5
Client identity withheld at their request. Figures reflect the first 90 days after launch.
