How to customize a CRM to become a more organized and efficient freight broker

As a freight broker, you want to spend the majority of your time planning and implementing successful deliveries, not worrying about organization and the finer details of your business. A CRM can help you stay organized, keep track of leads and clients, and streamline your workflow so that you can focus on what you do best. To get off to the best possible start with your new CRM, you’ll want to customize it to suit your needs.

There are many CRM features that there’s no need to customize, but to make the most of your CRM, some features will require a bit more set up. To speed up your CRM set up process, read on for customization ideas that will help you get the best value out of your CRM as a freight broker.

Three critical features that you’ll want to customize in your CRM are groups, pipelines, and custom fields. Take a look below for some inspiration for how you can customize these three features as a freight broker and make your CRM work for you.

Imports and exports
Note: If you’re considering CRMs and you want to give our product — Less Annoying CRM — a try, we’ll be happy to apply all these customizations to your account during your free trial so you don’t need to worry about a thing. Just get in touch with our support if you’d like to give it a try.

Groups

Segment and organize your list of contacts and companies in the CRM.

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Pipelines

Pipelines

Track any workflow or process that you repeat over and over again.

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Fields

Custom fields

Collect all the information you need that is critical for your work.

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Custom fields

As a freight broker, it will be especially important to collect information on the suppliers and carriers that you work with to coordinate smooth and timely deliveries.

  • 🗓️Load Delivery Date (date field to track estimated delivery date)
  • 📝Carrier Insurance Coverage (dropdown field to track each carrier’s insurance details)
  • 🚛Preferred Load Types (checkbox field to mark down types of cargo each carrier will transport)
  • ⚖️Average Load Volume (number field listing the average load volume a particular carrier can accomodate)
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Custom fields let you take your CRM to the next level. Collect more than just the basic information about the contacts and companies you work with; instead, collect everything that is critical for your work.

Pipelines

Pipelines are composed of statuses—each status is step in the process you are tracking. Pipelines consist of both active and closed status. An active status is something that requires follow up or additional work. A closed status tracks the end points of a process.

As a freight broker, you can use a pipeline to track your entire process. From the first time a supplier expresses interest in your services to when the delivery has been successfully completed—store all of that information in your pipeline. Take a look at an example pipeline for freight broker below.

Active statuses

Lead
Initial Contact
Carrier Search
Rate Negotiation
Load Confirmation
Shipment Tracking

Closed statuses

Delivered
Not a fit
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Pipelines are one of the most useful CRM features; they let you track any workflow or process that you repeat over and over again. It's a great way to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

Groups

As a freight broker, groups will help you easily keep track of the key people and companies you liaison with. Take a look at a couple example groups that are perfect for freight brokers below.

  • 🚛Carriers
  • 📦Shippers
  • ☎️Dispatchers
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Groups are a handy feature that you can use to segment and organize your list of contacts and companies in the CRM. Think of groups as tags that you can attach to anyone to assign a label to them.

Once you’ve created custom fields, pipelines, and groups in your new CRM, you are ready to get started! Dive right in and start making the most of your new CRM.

Less Annoying CRM is a contact management tool designed for small businesses, run by a small business.

At $15/user/month with a 30-day free trial, LACRM has all the features that you need to manage your customers, new prospects, and everyone in between.

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