🚚 Logistics & Distribution · Freight Quoting
Freight Broker Quoting Automated: Carrier Rates to Quote in Under 15 Minutes
Autonomous Freight Quoting & Pipeline Orchestration
Quote turnaround under 15 minutes. $15K/month in pipeline value captured. 60% reduction in quote-to-close cycle.
Solution design · numbers modeled on the operation described
Freight brokers were losing deals because quote turnaround took hours. Carriers change rates daily. By the time a human pulled rates from 5 portals, built the quote, and sent it — the shipper had already moved on. CLU responds in under 15 minutes.
// the problem
Freight quoting is a time-critical process: shippers request quotes from multiple brokers simultaneously and award to whoever responds first with a competitive rate. Brokers must query carrier rate databases, check lane availability, calculate margins, and build a formatted quote — manually, across multiple portals. This process takes hours. Carrier rates change daily, making cached rates unreliable. The result: lost deals to faster competitors, inconsistent margins, and sales teams buried in quote administration instead of relationship building.
// what CLU does
CLU deploys a quoting agent that monitors the inbox for RFQs, automatically queries live carrier rate databases across the load type and lane, calculates optimal margin, builds a formatted quote, and sends it — all in under 15 minutes. Won quotes trigger automatic CRM pipeline entries and carrier booking. Lost quotes are logged with competitive context for pricing intelligence. Sales reps focus on relationships, not rate lookups.
// the agents, in order
- 1RFQ Monitor AgentMonitors email inbox for incoming quote requests in real time — parses load details, origin/destination, equipment type, and delivery window automatically
- 2Rate Query AgentQueries live carrier rate databases across multiple sources simultaneously — DAT, carrier portals, contract rates — returns best available rate for the specific lane
- 3Margin Calculator AgentApplies current margin rules and account-level pricing agreements to calculate the competitive quote — within policy, automatically, no manual override needed
- 4Quote Generation AgentBuilds formatted quote document with carrier options, transit times, and terms — sends to shipper in under 15 minutes from RFQ receipt
- 5CRM Pipeline AgentWon quotes automatically create CRM opportunities with carrier booking details; lost quotes log competitive data for pricing intelligence — pipeline always current
// systems it talks to
- Rate Databases (DAT)
- Email API
- CRM API
- Carrier Portals
- Margin Rules Engine
// the economics
$15K/month pipeline value captured · Sales team freed from quote admin · Pricing intelligence built automatically
// CLU · the agent factory
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