Agent Case Study · Freight Brokerage
Getting paid,
without the awkward calls
A freight brokerage moved thousands of loads a year and chased the money for every one of them by hand. Month-end meant two ops people playing collections agency. Our AI accounts receivable agent took over the follow-up — polite, relentless, tone-matched per account — and cash started arriving on schedule.
Industry
Freight brokerage / 3PL
Company size
~45 employees, hundreds of active accounts
Region
Midwest US
Time to live
2 weeks, top accounts first
Client details anonymized under NDA — industry, size band, and timeline are accurate; identifying details are not shared.
Where they started
The challenge
Freight margins are thin and payment terms are long; every overdue invoice was working capital the brokerage lent its customers interest-free. Follow-up was ad-hoc — whoever noticed an aging invoice sent an email, usually apologetically, usually late. Accessorial charges and detention fees aged worst because nobody enjoyed defending them on the phone.
The owner's fear was relational: shippers are repeat business, and an aggressive collections tone could cost a customer worth fifty invoices. Consistency without aggression was the brief.
The build
What we built
01Ledger-driven, always current
The agent reads invoice status straight from their accounting system — a payment posted this morning stops this afternoon's reminder automatically.
02Tone ladders by account tier
Strategic shippers get gentle nudges and longer runway; transactional accounts get a brisker cadence. Every template was approved by the owner before launch.
03Human escape hatches everywhere
Any reply containing a question, dispute, or hardship signal pauses the sequence and routes to the team with full context. Day 45 triggers a human call, not a nastier email.
04Reconciliation and the Monday report
Payments auto-match to invoices; partial payments adjust the ladder. A weekly summary shows collected, aging, and the three accounts that genuinely need a phone call.
Ninety days later
The results
The relationship fear inverted: customers started complimenting the brokerage's 'professional billing team.' Consistent, polite process reads as competence, not pressure. Both numbers landed inside our published ranges — 30–50% fewer overdues, 5–15 days of DSO — and month-end stopped being a collections sprint.
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