For years, many within the freight industry recognized a significant operational bottleneck: appointment scheduling. Based on over a decade of experience as a broker, our founder describes feeling that “something was lacking with appointment scheduling”. This feeling was echoed by brokers reaching out, asking if effective automation solutions existed. The consistent answer was, “There really wasn’t much out there”.

The challenges were clear in daily operations. Loads would sometimes be tendered, but “wouldn’t be touched or appointed for maybe a week”. This delay directly impacted transit times and efficiency. Even with urgent “hot loads” and trucks readily available, getting an appointment set quickly could be impossible if, for example, “maybe one of our ops folks was out and they were the only ones that kind of knew how to log in and get the appointments”. This reliance on specific individuals with unique knowledge or access highlighted a major fragility in the process.

The reason for this persistent gap and the lack of widespread solutions boils down to the nature of appointment scheduling itself. It is described as a nuanced and complex process. Unlike automating simple data entry, scheduling requires understanding varied requirements, interacting with different systems (portals) and methods (email), and often relying on implicit knowledge built over time. This complexity made it seem intimidating for technology innovators to get into appointment scheduling automation, deterring many potential developers and adopters. This inherent difficulty is presented as the core reason there aren’t many companies out there that are doing it.

Early attempts to automate scheduling did exist, often utilizing RPA and bots. However, these solutions often fell short because they didn’t address the full scope of the problem. The critical limitation was the lack of integration. There wasn’t a single solution that integrated all the portals and email requests in one. Schedulers still had to juggle multiple interfaces and communication methods, even with partial automation in place.

Identifying and solving this specific, integrated need, and bringing together the automation of diverse portal workflows and ubiquitous email scheduling, is seen as addressing a fundamental problem that has been slowing brokerages and fleets down for a long time. It represents a significant step forward in tackling a historically complex and underserved area of freight operations. Our teams here at BiggerPicture are proud to be leading the industry in scheduling automation technologies.