The customer who found out from the tracking page
A missed connection is visible in the system for a day before anyone tells the customer, and by then they have called three times.
See the sector pictureEste ejemplo se está actualizando. El texto de abajo sigue en inglés.
Example · Logistics and freightShipment exception agent
The container that moved, and nobody told anyone
An agent that watches for the exception, tells the customer what changed and when it will arrive, and stops dead at release authority, customs and driver hours.
Illustrative scenario — not a real client result
Exception board · 06:40
- Answered
4 exceptions detected
06:41 · Missed connection, held at customs, no slot
- Answered
3 customers updated
06:44 · What changed, new ETA, next step
- Person
“Release it without the original B/L”
06:46 · Authority · with a person
Cargo is never released by the agent
Shipment exception agent · Logistics and freight
- Sourced facts
- A person authorises
- Cargo documents decide
01 — A typical day
Three small failures that add up.
What logistics and freight owners tell us goes wrong in an ordinary week.
One late day, one per cent
An unexpected day costs real money on the shipment. The cost of not saying anything is usually larger.
See the delay studyA release on a phone call
Someone says the original bill of lading is coming, and the container goes out. The document never arrives.
See the documented case01 — A typical day · the evidence
What the numbers actually say.
Each figure opens its source, year, sample and limits. Click a badge to check it.
01
Source
FIT Alliance 2024 eBL survey, via American Journal of Transportation
2024
Method and sample are recorded in the source registry.
Read the source for its scope and limits.
Open the source29.4%
eBL adoption among surveyed freight forwarders
FIT Alliance survey, September–October 2024, with BCG and HKUST. The accessible summary does not state sample size.
FIT Alliance 2024 eBL survey · 202402
Source
Digital Container Shipping Association, FIT Alliance eBL survey 2022
2022
Method and sample are recorded in the source registry.
Read the source for its scope and limits.
Open the source5%
of shipping-industry respondents had fully moved to electronic bills of lading
FIT Alliance survey of 278 participants in 66 countries, 2022. Industry-wide, not forwarders only.
Digital Container Shipping Association · 202203
Source
World Bank, cost of delivery delays in freight forwarding
2015
Method and sample are recorded in the source registry.
Read the source for its scope and limits.
Open the source1%
of shipment value lost per unexpected delivery day
World Bank study of 153 freight-forwarding firms in Serbia, 2015. An estimate for one corridor.
World Bank · 201502 — What the helper does
From your records to a decision you own.
The agent watches the milestones the carrier and forwarder already publish. When one slips, it tells the customer what changed, the new estimated arrival and what happens next — in one message.
It keeps the reference numbers straight: booking, container, house bill, customs entry. It asks only for information the customer has to supply, and it chases it once.
It never authorises release, never gives customs or duty advice, never changes a routing, and never says a driver's hours allow something they do not.
6 steps · 2 decisions you own
Reads from
- Carrier and terminal feeds
- Customer email
- Forwarding system
- Customs broker
Text version of the flow
- 1. Watch the milestones — Expected versus actual.
- 2. Work out what changed — Arrival, route, cost.
- 3. Tell the customer first — One message, one CTA.
- 4. Collect what only they have — Documents and instructions. Human checkpoint: Customs and hours are not its call.
- 5. Stop at authority — Release, customs, hours. Human checkpoint: A person authorises release.
- 6. Close the exception — Delivered or handed over.
02 — What the helper does · a simulated example
One simulated example, step by step.
Use the buttons or the left and right arrow keys. Nothing here is a real customer.
Simulated example
Coastal Forwarding, a six-person forwarder
Email and customer portal · 06:40
A forwarder handling about 200 containers a month. The agent watches milestones overnight. Every message is simulated; no real shipment data is used.
Coastal Forwarding's shipment assistant. I can update you on your consignment and request documents. Release, customs and charges are handled by the operations team.
03 — What you decide
The helper prepares. You decide.
The agent reports the exception. Operations owns the cargo.
Release needs a person
Cargo, documents and charges are an operations decision, taken with the file in front of them.
Carrier data only
Arrival times and holds come from the carrier and terminal feeds, not from an estimate the agent invents.
One escalation route
A refused or unanswered request goes to a named person with the reference, not into a queue.
You can pause it
Pause for a customer, a trade lane or the whole book; updates fall back to the operations inbox.
Without your approval · No release, no charge waived, no customs advice, no routing change, no statement about driver hours.
04 — What changes when a safeguard is missing
Documented cases, not scare stories.
Three documented disputes with their sources. Each turns on a document or a dispatch decision that nobody verified.
Cargo released without the bill of lading
A partner released a consignment of cameras without production of the bill of lading. The buyer then refused to pay, and the Hong Kong court ordered the forwarder to pay $143,815.
What the helper would do differently
A release is never a conversation the agent can have. Requests are escalated with the file, and the answer comes from a person who can see the document.
$143,815
ordered against the forwarder
A load dispatched despite a mismatch
A caller claiming to represent a carrier collected a shipment. Despite discrepancies between the caller's information and the broker's records, the load was dispatched and stolen. The court affirmed judgment for the broker on preemption grounds, not a finding of liability.
What the helper would do differently
Dispatch details are verified against the record, and a mismatch stops the job. The agent cannot confirm a carrier by phone and proceed.
Stolen
consignment collected by an impostor
Rate sheets that did not match the shipper's
Owner-operators alleged the broker altered rate sheets despite promising 88% of the linehaul rate. One example contrasted the driver's calculation on an $8,000 sheet with an alleged $15,000 shipper payment. The parties settled; the allegations were not a court finding.
What the helper would do differently
The original shipper rate and each rate-sheet version are preserved, so a driver's pay can be reconciled to the revenue on the file.
Settled
allegations of altered rate sheets; terms undisclosed
04 — What changes · the evidence
The rest of the evidence.
Every figure resolves to a source with its sample and limits. No figure without one.
29.4%
eBL adoption among surveyed forwarders
FIT Alliance, September–October 2024. Sample size not stated in the accessible summary.
Source
FIT Alliance 2024 eBL survey, via American Journal of Transportation
2024
Method and sample are recorded in the source registry.
Read the source for its scope and limits.
Open the source278
participants in the 2022 industry survey
Banks, forwarders, carriers and shippers across 66 countries, June–July 2022.
Source
Digital Container Shipping Association, FIT Alliance eBL survey 2022
2022
Method and sample are recorded in the source registry.
Read the source for its scope and limits.
Open the source5%
had fully transitioned to electronic bills of lading
Same survey; 28% used them alongside paper. Most of the industry still runs on documents.
Source
Digital Container Shipping Association, FIT Alliance eBL survey 2022
2022
Method and sample are recorded in the source registry.
Read the source for its scope and limits.
Open the source
04 — What changes · your week
The same week, two ways.
Drag the handle, or use the left and right arrow keys when it is focused.
Typical week, beforeTypical week, after
Mon
A missed connection shows in the feed; the customer sees it first.
Tue
Three customers call about the same vessel.
Wed
A release is agreed on the phone and confirmed by email later.
Thu
The missing commercial invoice is discovered at the customs deadline.
Mon 06:41
Exception detected overnight and logged with the reference.
Mon 06:44
Customer told what changed, before they ask.
Wed
Release requests go to operations with the file attached.
Thu
Missing documents are requested once, with the deadline stated.
Illustrative example · not a measured result
05 — Your version
Four questions about your own week.
Keep your answers. They are the brief for the first version we would build for you.
How many shipments run in a normal week, and how many hit an exception?
Who needs to hear about a delay, in what order, and by when?
Which decisions can never leave your team: release authority, customs, driver hours?
What would you want the customer to read before they call you?
Next
Put your own figures into the calculator below. It runs in your browser, and nothing is sent or stored.
Put your week into the calculatorBring the four answers to the free one-hour call. We will use them to sketch the first version, and you keep the written plan either way.
Talk about your business05 — Your version · your numbers
Put your own week into it.
An estimate, not a promise. The model and its assumptions are printed below.
Your inputs
Containers, groupage or parcels.
count
From your own milestone data.
%
Checking, calling, emailing, updating.
min
Operations staff time.
per hour
From the milestone slipping to the first update.
hours
Example defaults are typical for a small business. Replace them with yours. Nothing is stored, sent or shared.
Estimated result
IllustrativeOperations hours back each month
0–0
- Time released at your rate
- £0–£0
- Exceptions noticed overnight
- 0–0%
- Time from exception to customer update
- Already immediate
How we calculated this
Routine work handled by the helper: 70% of the share you marked routine.
Time saved per item: 80% of the minutes you entered.
Monthly volume: weekly figures × 4.33; monthly figures used as entered.
Cost: hours saved × your staff cost per hour, in pounds as an illustration.
Reply time: routine items move within the hour while the helper runs. Complex work still waits for a person.
Questions
The things people ask next.
No. Release, document acceptance and charges are operations decisions. The request goes to a named person with the file.
No. It reports the broker's status and requests what only the customer can supply. Classification and duty are the broker's work.
The carrier's and terminal's published milestones. If there is no carrier estimate, the agent says so rather than projecting one.
No. A re-route or a change of vessel is an operations decision, though the agent will flag when one may be needed.
It reports the logged hours it can see and never states that a driver can legally continue. That is the operator's call.
One request with a stated deadline. Silence escalates to a person, not to a second automated message.
Three to four weeks: carrier and terminal feeds, reference mapping, escalation rules and a parallel run on one lane.
Start here
Show us a week of exceptions.
One hour with last week's exceptions and your milestone feed. We will show you what the agent would have caught, and what it would never authorise.