Freight Quote Request Automation: Intake, Rate Lookup and Drafts

What the service is

AiStaffo sets up an AI worker that handles the first stage of freight quoting. It watches the inboxes and web forms where quote requests arrive, converts each request into one standard record, matches the lane against your rate card, and prepares a draft for a person to approve. The work that used to start with someone reading an email now starts with a complete, checked record.

Who it is for

The service suits any business that prices freight by lane and receives requests in writing. That includes freight forwarders quoting ocean and air cargo, road haulage firms, freight brokers, 3PLs, and shippers who buy transport for their own goods. Teams of any size can use it. A firm with two account managers and one shared inbox has the same process problem as a group with dozens of sales staff, only at a different scale.

It is a poor fit if most of your quotes are set by a long negotiated contract with one client, or if your rates change daily by carrier and cannot be written into a rate card. In those cases the rate lookup adds little, and a simpler intake form may be the better first step.

Why the first stage is where quotes slow down

Quote delays usually begin with the request itself. Freight quote guidance from a shipping platform notes that one missing piece of information can stop a forwarder from executing a quote, and that a missing detail often turns a morning reply into a question to the customer. A 2026 freight accuracy guide from BTX lists the usual gaps: origin and destination details, pickup timing, dimensions, piece count, service level and accessorial needs. Each gap that is discovered late usually adds a day or more of back and forth.

Rate lookup is the second source of delay. A rate card in a spreadsheet, a set of carrier portals, and a few emailed tariffs all have to be checked by hand for each lane. Freight software vendors describe the same step as a query against structured data. The gain comes from having the rates in one searchable place, not from the search itself.

What is included

• An intake connector that reads quote requests from the shared sales inbox and from your web quote form.
• A standard quote request sheet with fixed fields: origin, destination, weight, volume or pieces, commodity, service level, ready date, required delivery date, incoterm and contact details.
• Extraction rules that handle requests written in ordinary language, forwarded threads and follow-up emails that change an earlier request.
• A lane lookup against your rate card, with the matching rate, surcharges and validity dates shown next to the request.
• A draft quote in your own format, ready for the account manager to edit and approve.
• An automatic reply to any sender whose request is missing a required field, with a plain checklist of what is needed.
• An activity log that records each request, the fields found, the rate used and who approved the final quote.

How it runs

The service follows five stages. Each stage ends with a decision from you before the next one begins.

1. Audit. We review a sample of recent quote requests, the rate card format, the number of lanes and the people who approve quotes. The free automation audit is where this starts.
2. Process map. We write down each step from the first email to the sent quote, including the points where a person currently checks a rate or asks a question. You confirm the map before any build work begins.
3. Build. We set up the intake, the standard sheet, the lane lookup and the draft format, and test them on past requests you choose.
4. Run. The workflow goes live on a limited set of lanes or one inbox first. Account managers review every draft during this period.
5. Support. We monitor the workflow, update the rate card when rates change, adjust the checklist wording and add lanes when you are ready.

What you provide

You provide access to the sales inbox or quote form, a copy of the rate card in whatever format you use, and a sample of recent requests, including the ones that went badly. You name the person who approves quotes and the limits they set for margin or exceptions. You also decide which lanes are in scope first and which fields are required for each service level. Good sample data makes the build faster and reduces wrong matches.

Typical timeline

The table below shows the planned sequence for a single inbox and a rate card covering a defined set of lanes. Larger rate sets or several inboxes add time to the build and the run stage.

Results depend on your own request volume, the state of your rate card and how quickly your team reviews drafts. The free audit measures these before a timeline is fixed.

What the system does not decide

Automation reads and organises information. It does not replace a commercial decision. A person still decides whether to accept a request, how much margin to apply on an unusual lane, and whether a non-standard term is acceptable. Customs classification, dangerous goods declarations, insurance terms and carrier capacity are also outside the scope of the rate lookup unless you connect a source that holds those facts. Extraction can misread an unclear email, especially one with mixed units or a forwarded chain, so the draft always shows the source text next to each extracted field. Any rate card that is out of date will produce out of date drafts, so someone must own the update process.

What this service does not cover

• Booking a shipment with a carrier, or confirming space and equipment.
• Customs filings, duty calculations or trade compliance checks.
• Sending quotes to customers without an approval step.
• Pricing decisions for lanes that are not in your rate card.
• Carrier invoice checking and payment processing.

The free automation audit is the simplest way to test whether this fits your quote volume and rate card. Book a free automation audit to see which lanes and inboxes would come first.