In short: When to follow up, what to say, a follow-up template, asking why you lost, and tracking your quote win rate.
Small forwarders spend a lot of effort on the quote and almost none on what happens after it's sent. Many quotes are never answered: the customer went with whoever replied first, the shipment moved, or your quote sank in their inbox. A short, well-timed follow-up wins back some of those jobs for a few minutes' work. This article covers when to follow up, what to say and how to tell whether it's working.
The best follow-up is a fast first reply. A customer asking three forwarders for a price often books with the first one that gives a complete, clear quote. If your replies take most of a day, follow-ups are fixing a problem that starts earlier. Our guide to getting quote response time under an hour covers that side.
A follow-up works when it makes the next step easy. Don't just ask "any update?". Give them something to act on: a question that unblocks the booking, a change that affects the price, or an offer to adjust the quote.
Hi [name], Just checking you got the quote for the [pieces/container] from [origin] to [destination]. If the cargo-ready date or volume has changed, send me the new details and I'll update it today. If you'd like to go ahead, reply "book it" and I'll confirm space. The rate is valid until [date]. [Your name]
When a customer says no, ask one question: was it price, transit time, or something else? Most will answer in a line. After a few weeks of answers you'll know whether you're losing on rates, on speed or on clarity, and each needs a different fix. If it's price on certain lanes, look at your buy rates and how you set margins. If it's speed, look at how long quotes take to go out.
Keep a simple log: date requested, date quoted, customer, lane, amount, followed up (yes/no) and outcome. Your win rate is quotes won divided by quotes sent. Two numbers in that log tell you most of what you need: the win rate on quotes you followed up versus those you didn't, and the win rate on quotes sent within an hour versus later. Even a spreadsheet kept for a month will show you where the jobs are going.
Following up is easy to skip when the team is busy writing quotes. Laneworks drafts the quote reply from your own rate sheet in about two minutes, which frees that time for the follow-ups and calls that win the job. See a sample draft, or forward a real quote request to try@getlaneworks.com.
Forward a quote request