- CRM (in logistics)
- A CRM in logistics is the record a carrier or broker keeps on the companies that give it freight: brokers, shippers and consignees, with the contacts and payment standing attached to each.
The word is borrowed from consumer software, and the borrowing is where the confusion starts. A sales CRM is built around many small buyers and the job of selling them more. A freight CRM is built around a comparatively short list of companies that hand you loads, where the relationship is already established and the open question is a different one.
That question is whether they pay. A customer record in trucking carries the MC number and the credit standing next to the phone number, because the risk in this business is not a lost upsell - it is hauling a load well and then waiting on the money.
Broker, shipper and consignee are three different roles and the same company can be more than one of them, so the record says which it is on this load rather than assuming.
"Transportation CRM", "CRM for logistics companies" and "CRM software for transportation companies" all describe this same thing. There is no meaningful difference between them beyond the phrasing.
The failure worth naming: when the customer list lives apart from dispatch, the person booking a load cannot see that the broker on the other end is behind on three invoices. The credit standing is only useful at the moment somebody is deciding whether to take the freight, which is why it belongs beside the load and not in a separate address book.
Software that handles this for you
Run your real loads through it before you decide anything.
- Free tier
- Up to 3 trucks, permanently
- After that
- $19 per truck, not per seat
- Included
- Every module, on every plan