Building Better Supply Chains: 3 Strategies for Better Brokerage Operations

Every freight brokerage has its own set of processes, but the core fundamentals aren’t very different across the industry. What can set one apart from another in a volatile industry in which businesses come and go is the effective use of freight broker software.

Of course, not all software providers are the same. The best freight broker software is designed to meet the unique needs of the industry and supercharge back-office operations while being scalable and easy to use.

🚧Challenges Abound in the Brokerage Back Office

When you’re a freight broker, one job is to make decisions, and one is to complete actions – scheduling appointments, quoting loads, finding carriers, etc. It’s very easy to say you’re busy all day when you’re just doing actions rather than what you get paid to do, which is to make decisions. The problem is that so many freight brokerage actions require someone to put in an effort and have some back-and-forth with colleagues, shippers, or carriers.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Freight brokers can surmount the back-office challenges that distract them from growing their business and making money.

These challenges include:

Fragmented Communication Channels

Voicemails and Post-it note messages don’t cut it today, when real-time communication is expected. Communication lags impact shipment coordination. Inefficient communication channels also can negatively impact information accuracy.

“Communication delays can create critical issues throughout the entire supply chain, reducing worker productivity and hurting a company’s bottom line. When communication speed is of utmost importance, there is no room for withholding information or keeping it out of frontline employees’ view,” Food Logistics said.

Manual Processes And Inefficiencies

Manual data entry and task management eat up valuable time – time that could be devoted to winning new business or growing existing accounts. Manual processes are not only inefficient but greatly increase the risk of human error.

Freight Caviar said back-office errors resulting from manual processes are bad for business and can result in financial setbacks, strained relationships, compliance risks, and a barrier to scaling.

Limited Data Visibility And Reporting

A lack of real-time data and performance metrics is like flying blind, and the impact on decision-making and strategic planning can be a business killer.

“When brokers lack access to the insights necessary to understand capacity trends in real time, they are not able to price freight in accordance with real-world market conditions. This can lead to overpricing or underpricing freight, both of which ultimately threaten a broker’s efficiency and profitability,” FreightWaves said.

🛤️Innovative Solutions Offer a Path to Efficiency in the Broker Back Office

Technology has paved the way for innovative solutions that boost the efficiency of freight brokerages’ back offices. And efficiency can be a freight brokerage’s selling point.

“Efficiency is the lifeblood of any robust logistics operation,” TechJournal said. “The seamless movement of goods from one location to another is critical in meeting customer demand and maintaining a competitive edge.”

💡3 Strategies for Better Brokerage Operations

Logistics is fundamentally a relationship-based industry. As much as we try to digitize, automate, and turn freight into a marketplace, those relationships still matter. That’s the ethos behind Drumkit. We want freight brokers to make decisions and build relationships while we sit in your inbox as an AI email assistant.

Drumkit is an AI integration tool that automates certain tasks for you – things like data entry, load building, and quoting into your transportation management system (TMS), track-and-trace updates, reading responses from carriers, realizing there’s something wrong and then escalating that up to you so you can make a decision, and parsing RFPs so that you don’t have to do that data entry and can focus on decision-making. It’s all about taking those actions off freight brokers’ plates so that they can focus on the actual decision-making.

At Drumkit, our goal is to simplify as many back-office freight brokerage operations as we can across the life cycle of a load. With our freight brokerage software, our customers are able to effectively implement three strategies to improve their back-office brokerage operations.

1. STREAMLINE COMMUNICATION FOR ENHANCED COLLABORATION

Drumkit’s AI email assistant streamlines communication by integrating multiple tools into a single platform that provides intelligent auto-replies, quick quotes, an integrated sidebar, and more. The benefits of Drumkit’s streamlined communication tools include improved coordination among stakeholders, faster response times, and fewer misunderstandings.

Effective communication also helps win and retain business.

“The way your team communicates with customers can make them feel valued and leave them with a positive recollection of their experience,” Business News Daily said. “Alternatively, it can make them feel ignored and disgruntled, guaranteeing they will take their future business to your competitors (and likely spread the word about their negative feelings, too).”

2. AUTOMATE PROCESSES TO INCREASE OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY

Drumkit is an integration tool that automates tasks like price quoting, load building, and data entry. The benefits of utilizing AI-driven processes for handling repetitive tasks include workload and error reduction and enhanced operational efficiency and productivity. Efficiency gains through automation give freight brokers an invaluable edge in a highly competitive industry.

A McKinsey report noted that companies should view automation as a way to enhance human productivity rather than a way to replace manual labor. Drumkit’s solution does just that.

3. ENHANCE VISIBILITY AND PAYMENT PROCESSES FOR BETTER DECISION-MAKING

The Drumkit tool automates track and trace, freight delivery scheduling, and payment processing. Automation allows for more informed and faster decision-making based on accurate data. Another benefit is the ability to quickly identify and address issues in the supply chain.

“One of the biggest challenges to maintaining and improving supply chain visibility is disparate siloed technology systems,” a Supply Chain Dive article said.

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For a freight brokerage, its TMS is its source of truth. That’s where everything lives. Drumkit integrates with anyone and everyone, making that workflow easier and providing real-time visibility.

🥁Drumkit Is the Only Tool Needed for Better Brokerage Operations

Drumkit integrates with all of freight brokers’ tech tools right out of the box. They don’t need an engineering team to manage and customize the software. We’ve already done that. With our plug-and-play solutions, freight brokers can save time and get something done from day one.

Drumkit provides freight brokers with a comprehensive platform that supports every aspect of the load life cycle. The platform streamlines support for sales teams, simplifying carrier onboarding, verification, and quoting. On the operations side, our track and trace and appointment scheduling give freight brokers real-time visibility into load statuses.

Our software automates workflows with AI to help freight brokers increase capacity by 30-40%, reduce errors, and improve customer relationships. Drumkit plugs directly into customers’ email inboxes and TMSs to automate data entry, load scheduling, track and trace, and more.

Drumkit’s industry-leading features include:

• An integrated sidebar to quickly see load information across platforms in one place.
• A load-building function that instantly inputs loads into customers’ TMSs and eliminates manual data entry.
• Smart auto-replies that improve customer response times.
• Centralized data management to enable comprehensive insights and improve decision-making through actionable analytics.

We’ve recently rebranded from Axle Technologies to Drumkit. Axle really didn’t give prospective users a true picture of what we do, and Freight Inbox would not be a particularly memorable company name. The name Drumkit captures the idea that the rhythm of your operations really is affected by the tools that you have. You add Drumkit to your toolkit to simplify the rhythm of your operations.

You can look at it another way too. It’s hard to imagine the classic “In The Air Tonight” without Phil Collins’ drum solo. Once you use Drumkit’s automation tools, you won’t be able to imagine working without them.

Find out for yourself. Book a demo with Drumkit today.

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