Parade lets you record and act on any quote that comes through your brokerage. This is helpful for many reasons:
It helps you understand how productive your team is: are they selling freight well? Are some folks better than others? Why?
Every quote is an opportunity to learn what a carrier likes: Parade never forgets a carrier and learns from every quote to recommend them in the future.
You can speed up quote usage by approving quotes and turning them into digital bookings.
Let's walk through how this works.
Adding a Quote
Users who have the Add a Quote permission (all Agent/Ops users by default) can add a quote by clicking the New Quote button on a specific load or on the Quotes Messages tab:
If you can't add a quote, ask your admin for permission.
A quote requires four things:
A carrier You can search by name, DOT or MC #
A contact at the carrier You can create one while adding a quote
A load Pre-selected if you create a quote from the load detail
A price
The short video below shows how to create a quote:
Acting on Quotes
If you have the permission to Accept a Quote (admins by default; can be added to custom permission groups) then you can accept, counter or decline a load on a specific load or on the Quotes Messages tab:
If you don't have permission to accept, counter or decline you'll see these buttons but they'll be grayed out. Ask your admin for permission.
Quotes can come from both in-network and out-of-network carriers. The following chart outlines what happens if you click the different buttons under different circumstances:
Button | In-Network Carrier | Out-of-Network Carrier |
Accept | Assign carrier to load and trigger ratecon to be sent. | Request onboarding. Need to manually contact carrier to onboard. Load still available until carrier is assigned via TMS. |
Counter | Send an email to carrier with counter quote price. Carrier can digitally book at countered rate. | Record counter quote. Need to manually contact carrier to counter. |
Decline | Record a reason (will not be shown to carrier). When load is covered, carrier will get an email that they did not win the load (we won't state who winning carrier is or what final price was). | Record a reason (will not be shown to carrier). When load is covered, carrier will get an email that they did not win the load (we won't state who winning carrier is or what final price was). |
The video below shows how what happens under multiple different scenarios:
Is it working?
We have reporting to show you how your team is using quotes. Our quote reporting shows you how many quotes your team has created and their conversion rate. You can see how many quotes each team member creates and how aggressively they counter quote via our Carrier Rep Actions and Carrier Manager Actions reports.
I don't see the New Quote button. How do I get started?
In November, 2022 we launched a (free) update to Parade. Quoting is only available via this new version. Please contact your customer success lead who can get you set up for this (we need to make one quick change on the backend and you're on your way).