The problem
A quote request lands by email or web form and waits for whichever rep gets to it first. The shipper sent the same request to three other brokers. The first broker back with a rate gets the load.
What goes wrong
- The agent is the web form again. It collects a lane and a pickup date, and a rep still emails back for the weight, the equipment, and the accessorials.
- It quotes what it should not. It gives a rate on a lane you do not cover or to a customer on credit hold, and a rep spends the afternoon walking it back.
- It never writes the TMS, so the request lives in a chat log. The rep opens the file blind and asks the shipper to repeat everything.
The approach
- Write the rules first: which lanes and equipment you cover, which customers go straight to a person, what it must never promise, and who owns produce, flatbed, and reefer.
- Connect the TMS, the CRM, and your reps' calendars. The agent then routes the request to the right rep with every field captured, and the rep sets the rate.
- Run it with calendar booking off while your dispatchers read every transcript, and turn each miss into a rule before booking goes on.
- Keep a monthly transcript review after launch, so the rules change when your lanes, your carriers, or your credit terms change.
When it works
When most inbound requests want one of a few things (a quote, a rate on a regular lane, a new account) and a small set of questions decides which rep owns it. A person still takes the odd ones, with the file attached.
Where brokerages lose the load
A brokerage loses loads in the gap between a request arriving and a rep answering. A shipper emails at 7:40 in the evening: two pallets, Tampa to Charlotte, pickup tomorrow, liftgate at delivery. The request sits until morning. By then the shipper has a rate from whoever answered first.
Email has the same problem in a different shape. The request that does get answered comes back with a question: what is the weight, what equipment, does it need a liftgate. Every round trip costs an hour the shipper will not wait.
An AI agent on inbound fixes the real gap: nobody answers in the first ten minutes. Answering is the easy half. The agent also has to capture every field and reach the right rep.
What the agent should do
Capture the request completely
Origin, destination, pickup window, equipment, weight, commodity, accessorials, and the account it belongs to. Asked once, in your voice, and written to the TMS the same way every time. The rep never emails back for the weight.
Route to the rep who owns it
Produce goes to the rep who runs produce. A new account goes to whoever opens accounts. An existing shipper goes to their account rep, with the lane history attached. When the request needs a call, the agent books it on the rep's calendar.
Hand off with the file
When a person takes over, they get the transcript, a one-line summary, and the record in the TMS. Nobody asks the shipper where the freight is going.
How we build it
First, your dispatchers write the field list, the lanes and equipment you cover, who owns what, and what the agent must never say. We connect the TMS, the CRM, the calendars, and the Slack channel where alerts land.
Next, the agent answers on your site with calendar booking off. A dispatcher reads every transcript each day, and each miss becomes a rule.
Then it goes live with booking on. Monthly operation starts: monitoring, rule updates when lanes or terms change, a transcript review, and a scorecard of requests answered, calls booked, and response time.
When it does not work
It does not work if the rules are not written. An agent cannot guess your credit terms. It does not help if nobody reads the transcripts. The agent gets better because a dispatcher reads what it missed.
Where to start
If the quote desk is the first thing to fix, start with the Inbound Agent. If the paperwork is the bigger problem, Document Intake reads the bills of lading (BOLs) and carrier invoices for freight audit. If you are not sure which comes first, ask Roo, Webaroo's AI: Could an AI agent answer our quote requests in minutes?
Book 15 minutes with Connor