Shipper Back Office Automation for Freight and Logistics Teams
Shipper back office automation uses software and AI-supported workflows to handle the repetitive administrative work behind freight movements: enquiry intake, shipment status requests, quote and collection requests, qualification, customer data capture and routing to the right person. For shippers, hauliers, couriers, freight forwarders and 3PL back offices, that work fills most of the office day. Boafo Agent is a website-based AI enquiry agent that answers those repeated questions in your words, collects the details your operations team needs, books calls into a connected Google Calendar and emails a written summary to the right inbox. Live shipment data, pricing decisions and judgement calls stay with your people, with the full conversation attached.
Website enquiry handling, live within days. Trained on your business before launch.
What's getting in the way today
- Office staff answer the same delivery status and collection questions all day instead of clearing the real work.
- Quote and booking requests arrive at 21:00 and sit until someone opens the shared inbox in the morning.
- Enquiries need qualifying before anyone useful can act, so they bounce between people first.
- Genuine enquiries get lost in a shared inbox behind newsletters, invoices and carrier notifications.
- Peak weeks need more admin cover than you can realistically recruit.
- New enquiries land with half the information, so the first reply is always a question rather than an answer.
- The same enquiry gets retyped more than once: into an email, then a spreadsheet, then whatever the operations team works from.
- Handoff between the customer-facing side and the operations team loses context, so the customer repeats themselves.
How back office automation works for a shipper team today
Boafo Agent is trained on your services, lanes, coverage, cut-off times, policies and the questions your office already answers. It sits in a branded chat window on your website and answers visitors around the clock in your tone.
For a delivery status or documentation question, it explains your process, tells the customer exactly what your team needs from them, and captures the consignment reference, contact details and the nature of the query. For a quote, collection or booking request it works through your qualifying questions first: collection and delivery postcodes, pallet or parcel count, weight, service level, timings and any special handling.
Every conversation produces a written summary and a categorised enquiry. You get an instant email alert, the record lands in a Google Sheet you control, and a call or site visit can be booked straight into a connected Google Calendar during the conversation.
Nothing is invented. The agent does not read your transport management system, carrier portals or tracking feeds, so it never guesses where a load is. It answers what it genuinely knows, collects what your team needs, and escalates the rest with the whole thread attached. Deeper operational integrations, voice answering and WhatsApp are on the roadmap and are not live today.
Example conversation
Why teams choose Boafo Agent for this
Repetitive enquiries absorbed
The recurring questions your office answers every day are handled in the chat, in your words, without a person.
Qualified before it reaches staff
Postcodes, volumes, service level and timings are collected up front, so the first human reply can be a real answer.
After hours enquiries captured
Digital enquiries that land in the evening or at the weekend are answered and recorded instead of lost.
Routed to the right team
Enquiries are categorised so quotes, collections and account queries reach the right inbox with a summary.
Nothing buried in the inbox
Instant email alerts plus a Google Sheet you control give the office one clean list to work from.
Honest about its limits
It never claims to have live shipment data. Anything operational goes to your team with full context.
Where the ROI shows up
The saving is not theoretical: it is the volume of enquiries your office answers more than once a day. Count how many of those arrive through your website, add the ones that land outside working hours, and that is the workload this removes. Use the cost calculators below to put your own numbers against it rather than ours.
AI enquiry handling vs adding seasonal admin cover
| Feature | Boafo Agent | Extra admin headcount |
|---|---|---|
| Time to add capacity | About a week | Weeks to recruit and train |
| Cover outside office hours | Continuous on your website | Shift dependent |
| Consistency of answers | Same answer every time | Varies by person |
| Enquiry record | Summary, transcript and Sheet row | Depends on note taking |
| Live shipment lookups | Not supported, routed to staff | Yes, with system access |
| Commercial judgement | Escalated to your team | Handled in person |
Example workflow: a freight quote enquiry from your website
This is an illustrative workflow, not a description of how every logistics business operates. A visitor lands on a transport company's site and asks for a quote. The agent collects the collection location or postcode, the delivery location or postcode, the type of goods, pallet or load details, approximate weight, the required collection date, the required delivery date, the service level and the company and contact details. It confirms what happens next, then emails the completed enquiry to the operations or sales desk and writes the same fields to a Google Sheet. A person prices it. Nothing is quoted automatically.
Peak weeks without recruitment
Enquiry volume through the website can rise sharply in peak periods without adding admin cover, because the first conversation and the qualification are already handled. Your team keeps the exception work.
What onboarding involves
We train the agent on your website, service list, coverage and the questions your office already answers, agree the qualifying questions per enquiry type, then wire up email alerts, the Google Sheet and Google Calendar booking. Most deployments are live in about a week because there is no operational system integration to build.
The back office workflows this actually covers
Each of these is enquiry handling and qualification on your website, not operational system access.
Repeat customer questions
Coverage, cut-off times, service levels, packaging rules, opening hours, claims process and account setup answered instantly in your words.
Delivery status enquiries
The agent explains your process, captures the consignment reference and contact details, and routes to the traffic desk. It does not retrieve tracking data.
Quote enquiries and qualification
Postcodes, volumes, weights, service level, timings and special handling collected up front so the commercial team can price without a round trip.
Collection and booking requests
Structured intake for collection requests, with a call or site visit booked into a connected Google Calendar where that suits.
Documentation enquiries
Explains what paperwork is needed and who issues it, then routes requests for specific documents to the right inbox.
Email and enquiry triage
Every conversation arrives categorised and summarised by email and in a Google Sheet, so the office triages a clean list instead of raw messages.
After hours digital enquiries
Evening and weekend website enquiries are answered, expectations are set honestly, and nothing is lost before Monday.
Escalation and routing
You define which enquiry types go to which team. The agent applies those rules and hands over with the full thread.
Frequently asked objections
We already have a shared inbox rota.
The rota still exists. The difference is that enquiries arrive qualified and categorised, and the repetitive ones never reach the rota at all.
Our enquiries are too technical for a bot.
Then it should not try to answer them. The agent is scoped to what your office genuinely repeats, and everything else is routed to a person quickly with the details already collected.
We do not want customers misled.
The agent identifies itself as AI in every conversation and states plainly when something needs a human or when it cannot see live operational data.
Where this fits
If a meaningful share of your office day is repeated customer enquiry handling and quote or collection intake through your website, this removes that layer. If your bottleneck is live operational data and system integration, wait for the roadmap or talk to us first rather than buying on a promise.
Industry examples
Pallet and haulage
Qualifies pallet count, postcodes, weight and service level before the traffic desk sees the enquiry.
Couriers
Answers coverage, cut-off and collection process questions, and captures same day requests out of hours.
Freight forwarders
Takes structured RFQ details and routes lane enquiries to the right desk with a written summary.
3PL and fulfilment
Answers onboarding and service questions from prospective merchants and books discovery calls.
Shipper customer service
Handles repeated delivery status and documentation questions and escalates with the consignment reference.
Removals and specialist transport
Collects survey details and books site visits into a connected Google Calendar.
Boafo Agent runs in production on our own site and on AddressCore, handling website enquiries, qualification and email routing. We do not publish shipper customer results we cannot evidence.
See example scenarios →
Businesses running Boafo Agent live
Website questions, enquiry capture, configured qualification and booking where configured.
Learn more →Collect structured information and qualify using configured questions and business-defined rules.
Learn more →Collect appointment details and support a connected Google Calendar where configured.
Learn more →Answer website service questions, capture requirements and route enquiries to your team.
Learn more →Resolve tier-1 questions instantly on your website chat, with email handoff.
Learn more →One virtual AI receptionist on your website, trained on your business, with email handoff.
Learn more →Simple, transparent pricing
Pick the tier that fits today, upgrade when you outgrow it. Full pricing on the pricing page.
Starter
From
£99/month
+ £499 one-time onboarding
Small businesses wanting an AI Employee on their website.
- Website chat + lead capture
- Email notifications
- Custom branding
Growth
Most popularFrom
£299/month
+ £999 one-time onboarding
Businesses that want automation, customer recovery and deeper insights.
- Everything in Starter
- Google Sheets + CRM integration
- Advanced analytics
Businesses are adopting AI employees to capture enquiries and respond faster.
A website chat agent that picks up enquiries as they arrive, qualifies them and hands the details to your team.
Frequently asked questions
What is shipper back office automation?
It is the use of software and AI-supported workflows to handle repetitive administrative work in a shipper or transport back office: taking customer enquiries, collecting quote and booking details, answering routine questions, capturing structured data and routing each enquiry to the right person. The aim is to remove the retyping and the repeated questions, not to run freight operations without people.
Which logistics back office tasks can be automated?
Safely automated today: enquiry intake, quote request collection, routine questions about coverage, cut-off times and documentation, customer and shipment data capture, categorisation, appointment booking where configured, and structured handoff to your operations or sales team. Not automated: pricing decisions, live shipment lookups, exception resolution, claims outcomes and anything needing commercial judgement.
Can AI automate freight enquiries end to end?
It can automate the first conversation and the data collection. A freight enquiry that needs a rate, a capacity check or a live shipment position still needs a person, so the agent collects everything your team would have asked for and hands it over with the full thread.
Is this suitable for a small logistics company?
Yes. A small haulier or courier with a handful of office staff usually feels the repetitive enquiry load most, because there is no spare cover. The setup is the same: one website agent, your qualifying questions, email alerts and a Google Sheet.
Can it tell a customer where their load is?
No. Boafo does not connect to transport management systems, carrier portals or tracking feeds today, so it never guesses a shipment position. It explains your process, captures the consignment reference and contact details, and routes the query to your traffic desk with the full conversation attached.
Can it handle quote and collection requests?
It handles the intake and qualification. It asks your qualifying questions, collection and delivery postcodes, volumes, weights, service level and timings, then emails a categorised, summarised enquiry to your commercial team. Pricing decisions stay with your people.
Which channels does it work on?
A branded chat agent on your own website today, with email alerts, conversation summaries, Google Sheets delivery and Google Calendar booking. Phone answering, WhatsApp and SMS are in development and are not live.
Does it integrate with our TMS or CRM?
Not natively today. Enquiries reach you by email and Google Sheets, which most offices route onward from. Native two way CRM and operational system integrations are on the roadmap, and we will tell you plainly what is possible before you buy.
What happens outside office hours?
The agent keeps answering website enquiries, sets the right expectation about when a human will respond, and logs everything so the office starts the day with a qualified list rather than a backlog of unknowns.
How does escalation to staff work?
You tell us which enquiry types go to which inbox. The agent categorises the conversation, writes a short summary, and sends it with the transcript so nobody repeats the questions the customer has already answered.
Does it replace office staff?
No. It removes repeated enquiry handling so the same team can absorb more volume. Judgement, pricing and exception work stay with your people.
How long does it take to go live?
Typically about a week for a website agent trained on your services, with the email routing, Sheet and calendar wiring set up during onboarding.
What is the pricing model?
Flat monthly plans with a fixed onboarding fee. See Boafo Agent pricing for current plans and what each tier includes.