Digital quoting tools make collecting, organizing, evaluating, and auditing quotes simple.
Without technology to support it, the quoting process can be arduous for freight brokerages. It is labor-intensive, tough to organize, difficult to pass off from one rep to the next, and it can take forever. It doesn’t have to be so difficult, though. Parade’s digital quoting tools can streamline the process and make it easier than ever to find the right carrier for a load.
Here are just a few of the advantages Parade’s digital quoting tools offer brokers.
1. You Get Quotes Faster
Receiving quotes digitally is significantly faster than receiving quotes by phone or email. Carriers are more likely to send out a quote quickly if it’s easy for them and they don’t have to pick up the phone, and Parade carriers that are in-network are even more likely to send out a quote because the respective load is more than likely a good fit for them.
As the old saying goes, time is money. When reps save time during the quoting process, they can invest that time in other things, like building better relationships with carriers or getting more loads covered.
2. Quotes are Stored in One Place for Easy Access and Evaluation
When quotes come in on Parade, they’re all stored in one handy place so you can find and compare them with ease. All the information a broker needs to decide which carrier who reached out with a quote is the right fit is right in front of them.
With this list in front of them, brokers can reach out to ideal carriers to negotiate a rate that works for them.
3. Auditing Quotes is a Snap
One of the huge benefits of having all your quotes in one place is that all the data from quotes is in the same place, too. You don’t have to hunt it down, input it into a spreadsheet, or spend hours poring over that spreadsheet to find the information you need to drive smarter decision-making and strategy development in the future.
With Parade, it’s easy to make sure reps are taking advantage of every quote that comes in and doing their part to improve margins. Reports can be generated to show every time the lowest quote wasn’t used, what the lowest quote was, and even allows reps to tag lower quotes with an explanation of why they didn’t opt to use the lowest priced truck.
4. Parade Never Forgets a Carrier
Traditionally, freight brokerages don’t do anything with the quotes they don’t use. There aren’t enough hours in the day to keep track of every carrier who has ever sent a quote, despite that those unused quotes represent potential capacity on a load down the road.
Parade tracks all those carriers who sent quotes that you didn’t use automatically so you never miss a carrier. They even show those carriers in source search since they’ve shown interest in your loads before, showing a hollow gray circle next to them instead of the in-network solid green circle.
5. Brokers Don’t Need to Sort Through Quotes to Find Qualified Carriers
When brokers receive quotes on loads without Parade, they must investigate each carrier that quoted to make sure they can actually take the load. While tedious, this kind of pre-onboarding is a necessary part of getting a load covered, and it must be done even when a broker has worked with a carrier before to make sure their insurance and certifications are up to date.
Before Parade shows a quote to a broker, it checks that the carrier meets the broker’s (and shipper’s) requirements to be eligible to take the load. Parade simply doesn’t show quotes from unqualified carriers so brokers know that any quote that pops up amongst the load’s quotes is one they can use.
Digital Quoting Side Note
Receiving quotes digitally means cutting down the time you spend on the phone or reading emails from carriers, but it doesn’t have to replace the relationships you’ve built with those carriers. In fact, digital quoting gives more time for meaningful interactions with your carriers so you can build deeper relationships.
To learn more about Parade’s digital quoting features, reach out to our team by filling out this form. We’re happy to show you how it works and how it could help your brokerage streamline operations, improve margins, and get more done in a day.