A bottleneck is defined as something that slows or halts movement or progress. In the freight brokerage back office, any number of bottlenecks can strangle business growth. Freight broker software can flush out the snarls and enable businesses to scale.
At Drumkit, we’re all about eliminating the back-office bottlenecks that are holding freight brokerages back. We’re doing it with artificial intelligence and automation. We’re helping automating email communications, rate quotes, load building, track and trace, and more using AI. Understand how we can help your freight brokerage break through!
Common Back-Office Bottlenecks
First, let’s look at some of the obstacles that tangle back-office operations. (By the way, we can help you identify your bottlenecks while you’re running your day-to-day business.)
Repetitive, Time-Consuming Tasks
Your team can easily get tied up in time-consuming tasks. Manually matching shipments to carriers can be slow and prone to inefficiencies. Constantly sending emails also is inefficient and prone to mistakes. Entering data from multiple sources into disparate systems can lead to inaccuracies and duplication. White-glove quoting, in which you’re reaching out to customers to get their best quotes, can eat up time and fill up your inbox with easily missed messages.
Fragmented Systems
A lack of integration among transportation management systems, customer relationship management systems, and communication tools can result in a congested mess, like rush hour traffic.
Reactive Workflows
You can’t prevent inefficiencies if you’re struggling to manage exceptions. Proactivity needs to be the name of the game in back offices in 2025.
How to Break Through
Once you’ve honed in on your specific back-office bottlenecks, you can begin the process of smashing them to bits. Drumkit can help you with that too.
“You should think of technology as a ladder,” Drumkit CEO Dhruv Gupta told FreightWaves. “Start with the basic solutions you can implement using what you have at your disposal. As you want to scale up, that’s where tools like Drumkit can really optimize your productivity. Give us a call, and we’ll help you automate what you’re already doing.”
We also use the ladder scenario when looking at the steps freight brokers take. We really hone in on that first step, the beginning of a load, from quoting to load building. We then take the next step, to real-time tracking and appointment scheduling. And it’s all done automatically. You don’t need to put all of the details about a load into your TMS. To build a load, for example, you just review a form that has been automatically filled out for you, and you hit submit.
Importantly, freight brokers don’t have to climb the ladder alone. Drumkit has processes in place to take the necessary steps to break through bottlenecks with our automated tools.
Identify What’s Holding You Back
Take a close look at your current processes and identify where information gets stuck or requires manual intervention. AI and automation can enhance existing workflows while eliminating bottlenecks.
Evaluate Automation Tools
Today, automation is a necessity for freight brokerages to compete. Look for freight broker software that will add value from day one with real-time tracking, smart replies, streamlined load management, and more.
Monitor Performance
Track time savings, error reduction rates, and user satisfaction. Use intelligent insights for data-driven optimization and continuous improvement.
Break Through the Bottlenecks with Drumkit
With Drumkit, freight brokers can automate everything from rate quotes and load management to real-time tracking and customer communication. The result is a finely tuned back office free of bottlenecks.
Drumkit’s freight broker software plugs directly into customers’ email inboxes and TMSs to automate workflows, eliminate back-office bottlenecks, and break down business barriers. At the load level, all details are right there in a sidebar so you don’t have to go into your TMS or some other system to find any and all information you need.
Our industry-leading tools include:
- Intelligent Sidebar, allowing users to see all load information across platforms in one place.
- AI-Powered Smart Autoreplies that dramatically reduce response time without losing personalization.
- Quick Quotes that help freight brokers win loads fast.
- Automated Load Building, which eliminates manual data entry errors.
- Load Matching, enabling quick and accurate carrier selection.
- Automatic Status Updates, which keep shippers and carriers informed every step of the way.
We’ll identify your bottlenecks with you — and then eliminate them. And we’ll give you time — time to deepen customer relationships, time to build strategic plans, and time to win more business.
“Whatever model of brokerage you have, having newfound time is an accelerant that can make you more productive in every facet of business,” Gupta told FreightWaves.
See for yourself. We’ve been connecting with freight brokers this year at such events as TIA 2025 and Manifest. Meet up with us at a conference or book a demo with Drumkit today.
