Modern technology has made our lives easier. Whether we are talking about communicating, employing, shopping or even more complex issues such as managing international transport, automation is the key to accelerating the process and making it simple.
The same rule applies to the freight industry. Automation is making its way to shipping and it cannot be stopped. Besides, why would you even stop it when it saves time and increases efficiency? Let’s take a look at the benefits of automation with a particular focus on the time component.
Instant Quoting
The advantage of utilizing an online quoting portal is that you can deliver a quote almost instantly. When you are manually calculating the quote, you will need a while to come up with it and clients are often in a hurry. Thanks to the automated process, the quote will be ready in seconds.
On top of that, the quotes will not only look professional, but you will have information on when they were issued and viewed by the customer. The best software also shows the current status of the quote and whether the client has accepted the offer.
Accuracy
When you are doing the quoting manually, you can make a mistake. That means going back to the start and doing everything all over again. Or, even worse, you risk losing a client. An automated quote will impress any customer with its quick delivery and accuracy. Due to the fact that everything is done automatically, there is no room for a mistake.
Number of Offers
We are only humans that can handle a limited amount of quote requests per day. Now, imagine that you have an increased workload. You do not have the resources to appoint extra staff which means that you need to be late in delivering a portion of the quotes. This does not make you look serious and the calculation process itself takes a lot of your time, not to mention that it affects your potential profit.
When you are working with automated software, it doesn’t matter if you have 2 or 2,000 offers every day. The automatic tool is capable to do the footwork and deliver all of them on time.
Report Delivery
There comes a time when you wish to check out a sale report and see how many customers have asked for quotes and the percentage of those accepting it. Manually preparing a report means going back through the archive and creating graphs and sheets which can take hours and even days.
Creating a report by using automatic tools means that you need to spend a couple of minutes and click several times to get a comprehensive analysis of the desired period. This will allow more time for analyzing the report and planning potential adjustments for the future.
Final Words
As you can see, there is no doubt which quoting option you should choose. The issue goes beyond just time as automated quoting secures simplicity and accuracy. With all that in mind, there is no doubt that manual quoting is a thing of the past and you should jump on board of automation!
