Your team's first week with Laneworks

Five minutes for everyone who will check drafts. What arrives, how to check it in 30 seconds, what to do when a rate is missing, and a short self-check at the end.

1. Forward the request as it is

Forward the customer's email to your Laneworks address (it's in your welcome email and looks like quotes+yourcompany@getlaneworks.com). Leave it as it is, attachments and all, one request per forward. Packing lists and invoices attached as PDF, Excel, CSV or Word are read. If an attachment can't be read, such as a scanned PDF, the draft says so; add the key details in your forwarding note.

2. What comes back

Within about two minutes, the people you named get an email titled Draft quote: <the customer's subject>. At the top is one of four labels:

Below the label are three parts: the reply to send, what we read from the customer's email, and the price breakdown. Every price line names the row of your rate sheet it came from, for example:

A one-page PDF quotation in your company's name is attached to every priced draft.

3. Check it in 30 seconds

1. What we read matches the email: mode, origin and destination, Incoterm, weight and volume, delivery address, clearance yes or no.
2. Read any line marked [!]. A flag means a person should look: an assumed detail, a minimum applied, a charge that depends on the supplier's terms.
3. The total looks like your team's. If a line looks wrong, the source tells you which row of your sheet to check.

Then press Open the reply: a new email to your customer opens in your own mail app with the reply filled in. Attach the PDF if you use it, and send. For a long reply, copy it from the draft instead. Nothing goes to a customer unless your team sends it, or you have switched on auto-reply in writing.

4. When a rate is missing

A Needs a rate draft has the rate request already written, with every shipment detail your agent or carrier needs. Open it, check it, send it. When their rate comes back, forward their reply to your rates address (also in your welcome email, ending -rates@getlaneworks.com). The rate is added to your sheet and the waiting quote is priced again automatically.

5. When your rates change

Forward the carrier's rate notice or your new rate sheet to your rates address. Your sheet is updated within a few minutes and you get one email listing every rate that changed. If anything looks wrong, reply "undo". Don't send rate sheets to your quotes address: that one is only for quote requests.

6. What else arrives

• Each morning: quotes sent two or more days ago with no answer from the customer, each with the follow-up already written and Won / Lost buttons.
• Each week: a short report of replies sent, response times, jobs won and any rates about to expire.

Self-check: six questions

Takes two minutes. Nothing is recorded; it's just for you.