A CRM for air cargo agents that keeps rate enquiries alive until the booking is confirmed

Air cargo selling happens in hours. An exporter has a consignment that must move this week, sends the details to three or four agents, and books with whoever comes back first with a workable rate and confirmed space. There is very little relationship insulation in a single transaction, but there is enormous relationship value across a year, because a shipper who trusts a desk to answer quickly stops shopping every shipment. The commercial problem is therefore speed today and consistency over months, which are different disciplines.

Where the enquiries come from

Enquiries come from exporters directly, from freight forwarders who do not hold their own airline relationships, from courier and express companies overflowing capacity, from overseas partners routing shipments inbound, from perishable exporters with seasonal peaks, and from trade contacts and referrals. A large share arrives on WhatsApp or by phone with a photograph of a packing list attached, which is exactly the kind of enquiry that never makes it into a spreadsheet.

What a qualified enquiry looks like

An air cargo enquiry is qualified when you have the origin and destination airports, the commodity, the gross weight and dimensions so chargeable weight can be established, the number of pieces, any special handling requirement, the cargo readiness date and the required delivery date, whether the shipper controls routing, and the payment basis. Dimensions are the detail most often omitted and the one that most often changes the price, because volume rather than weight decides many air shipments.

The stages, and the evidence that moves them

A workable pipeline runs: enquiry captured, shipment profile confirmed, rates and space requested, quotation issued with validity, shipper decision chased, space confirmed, booking handed to operations. The evidence is straightforward. Profile confirmed means weight, dimensions and readiness date exist. Rates requested means the log shows who was asked and when. Quotation issued means a document with a validity date. Space confirmed means an allotment reference exists. In a business measured in hours, a stage without evidence is simply a hope.

Who is involved

Internally there is a sales executive who owns the shipper, a pricing and reservations person who obtains rates and space, a documentation or operations person who takes over after booking, and a branch head who approves credit and exceptional rates. At the shipper there is an export or logistics coordinator raising the enquiry, a commercial manager comparing options, and finance setting terms. On inbound nomination business an overseas partner is involved as well, and their expectations need to be recorded somewhere other than in one person memory.

What the quotation contains

An air cargo quotation states the airport pair and routing, the carrier where relevant, the rate basis per kilogram with the chargeable weight assumption stated, fuel and security surcharges, terminal handling and documentation charges at origin, customs and other charges if quoted, what is excluded, transit time, the validity which is often only days, and the payment term. Stating the chargeable weight assumption explicitly prevents the most common dispute, which arises when actual dimensions differ from those described in a hurried message.

What stalls or kills a deal

Capacity disappears on the route and the rate you quoted cannot be honoured. The validity lapses while the shipper waits for their buyer to confirm. A competing agent quotes an all-in figure that hides charges. The cargo is not ready on the stated date and the whole enquiry must be rebuilt. Documentation for special cargo cannot be arranged in time. Or the shipper simply never replied and nobody followed up within the hours that mattered. In air cargo, follow-up speed is not a nicety, it is the product.

The reports that get run

Enquiries by route and commodity. Quote to booking conversion by route, which shows where your rates are genuinely competitive. Quotation ageing and expiries. Response time from enquiry to quotation, ideally measured in hours. Airline and consolidator wise usage and response performance. Shipper wise tonnage against the previous quarter. And loss reasons split into rate, space, transit, documentation and no response, with that last category being the one to attack first.

Air waybill issue and stock control, carrier bookings, manifests, cargo acceptance records, dangerous goods documentation, customs interfaces and billing belong in your cargo system and the airline platforms. Those records carry regulatory weight and must have a single authoritative home. The CRM holds the commercial thread: who asked, what was quoted, what was promised and what is due next. It should reference a booking rather than reproduce it, and it should never be described to a customer as part of the acceptance or documentation process.

Ask whether quotation validity is a first class field with an ageing view, since air rates expire in days. Ask whether rate requests to carriers can be logged with response times. Ask whether routes can be structured data for reporting. Ask whether general, perishable and special cargo can run as separate pipelines. Confirm that WhatsApp and calling are native, since that is where urgent enquiries land. And check how quickly a new enquiry reaches an owner, because in this business minutes decide bookings.

Air cargo desks generally weigh their inbox and spreadsheet routine against a general purpose CRM or a system built for short, rate driven cycles.

Route every enquiry channel into one queue, including the WhatsApp number shippers already use, and put an owner and a response clock on each. Record dimensions and readiness dates as required fields. Put a validity date on every quotation without exception and review the ageing report daily. Leave air waybills and manifests entirely in the cargo system. Within a month you will know your true response time and how many quotations expired unanswered, and both numbers usually change behaviour immediately.

Other pages air cargo agents review while comparing systems: WhatsApp CRM, CRM dialer, sales automation, lead management software, CRM by industry, and India pricing.