Turn shipment history into a tailored shipper RFP response with lane-specific evidence, historical cost benchmarks, and clear assumptions.
Where this helps
A shipper sends a lane workbook, service requirements, and a submission template. The response needs to explain why your brokerage fits this freight. Relevant shipment history can support that answer, but broad network averages can conceal differences in equipment, commodity, seasonality, and appointment requirements.
What Rectangle connects
Match the shipper’s origins, destinations, equipment, commodities, forecast volumes, and receiving windows to comparable completed loads in the TMS. Join delivery events, appointment records, carrier assignments, and settled carrier costs. Calculate performance with explicit denominators, separate linehaul from fuel and accessorials, and flag lanes where the sample is too thin to support a claim. Use the shipper’s scoring criteria to decide which evidence belongs in the response.
Match the shipper's requirements 24 RFP lanes · 18 with useful comparisons · 6 need more evidence.
- Chicago–Dallas: 5 loads/week · dry van · packaged goods.
- Required delivery window: 08:00–14:00.
- Comparable history uses completed loads from the last 12 months.
A closer look
In this example, the RFP covers 24 lanes. Eighteen have useful historical comparisons; six need additional costing or operating input. Chicago–Dallas calls for five weekly dry-van loads of packaged goods with an 08:00–14:00 delivery window. Over the last 12 months, 116 of 120 comparable shipments arrived within that window: 96.7%. Median paid linehaul was $1,900, excluding fuel and accessorials. The response can cite that specific operating experience and explain how appointment performance will be managed. Historical costs inform the pricing worksheet; they do not set the proposed bid rate or confirm next year’s capacity.
Build the lane evidence Chicago–Dallas has relevant operating history for this RFP.
- Shipper requirement: five weekly dry-van loads of packaged goods, delivered 08:00–14:00.
- Comparable history: 120 completed loads in the last 12 months; 116 arrived within that window, or 96.7%.
- Median paid linehaul: $1,900, excluding fuel and accessorials.
Use the lane's appointment performance in the operating narrative and its cost history in the pricing worksheet. Pricing and operations still need to approve the proposed rate and five-load weekly commitment.
From answer to action
Prepare the shipper’s lane workbook and draft an operating narrative organized around its requirements. Attach comparable-load evidence, explain the cost basis, and identify service gaps and exclusions. Assign lanes needing fresh costs or capacity checks to pricing and operations. Keep proposed rates separate from historical costs, and give the commercial owner a complete response to review before submission.
Prepare the RFP response Lane workbook and shipper-specific narrative prepared.
- 18 lanes include evidence; 6 flagged for costing or operating input.
- Proposed rates, capacity, and service commitments await owner review.
- Supporting records and assumptions linked · response not submitted.
Answer the shipper’s actual requirements with relevant TMS evidence and a bid your team can review.
