How to cut freight quote response time

Freight quote response time is mostly waiting, not working: the request sits in a shared inbox until someone has twenty minutes to find the rates, add the charges and write the reply. Shippers often send the same request to several forwarders, and the first complete, believable price is often the one that gets the booking. Here's where the time goes and how to take it out.

Forward one real quote request See a sample draft

Free trial: forward a request to try@getlaneworks.com and the draft comes back in about two minutes. No sign-up, no call.

Where the time goes

Waiting in the inbox: requests that arrive during a busy morning, after hours or at the weekend wait for a person.
Reading the request: pulling lane, cargo, weight, dimensions, Incoterm and delivery address out of an email and a packing list.
Finding the rates: the right sheet, the right validity, the right container size.
Adding everything else: origin and destination charges, clearance, delivery zone, markup, currency.
Writing it up: a reply the customer can understand and book from.

Five ways to reply faster

Keep one rate sheet per mode with a 'valid to' date on every rate, so nobody checks whether a rate is current.
Price local charges once, as a table, instead of re-typing them into every quote.
Use a standard reply format customers can book from: lines, totals, validity, what's excluded.
Ask for the missing details in the first reply, priced on stated assumptions, instead of a question with no price.
Automate the routine requests and keep people for the unusual ones. That's what Laneworks does.

How it works

Forward the customer's quote request to your Laneworks address, attachments and all.
We read it: lane, cargo, weights and dimensions, Incoterm and delivery address are pulled out of the email and any packing list.
We price it by fixed rules against your own rate sheet. The AI never sets a price, and every line names the rate-sheet row it came from.
Sent for you, or checked by you. With auto-reply on, fully priced quotes go straight to your customer from your own mailbox, usually within two minutes, 24/7. Anything unusual comes to your team as a draft.

Measure it

Laneworks' weekly report shows how many quotes were answered automatically, the median minutes from request to customer, how many were answered after hours, and the jobs won. Most teams have never seen their own number; it's usually the first thing they want to improve.

What Laneworks costs

Monthly price by quote volume, all users included. Plans start at A$1,500 a month (about US$980 or £780) including 150 quote requests. No per-quote fees, setup done for you. The trial needs no card, no call and no sign-up. Pricing

Questions

What is a good freight quote response time?

Same business day is the norm for routine FCL, LCL and air requests; faster wins more of them. When a shipper sends one request to several forwarders, a complete price in minutes is hard to beat. Laneworks replies to routine requests in about two minutes, any time of day.

Why are freight quotes slow?

Because each one is manual: reading the request, finding the current rate, adding origin, destination and clearance charges, then writing it up. Each step is quick; together, and behind a busy inbox, they take hours.

How do we test it?

Forward one real quote request to try@getlaneworks.com and time the reply.

Try it on one of today's requests

Forward a real quote request to try@getlaneworks.com. The priced draft comes back in about two minutes.

Forward a quote request