Years ago, we at Tallgrass decided to take a giant leap by building a CRM from scratch and designing it entirely around what freight agents actually need. And five years ago this month, our CRM went live!
Anyone in freight will agree: You’re only as strong as your tools. That was the heart behind our CRM on day one, and it remains our heart today.
Today, we’re celebrating that leap paying off. Hear from John Ruf, our VP of Information Technology, about everything the TGF tech team has built, what’s coming next and why the best version of our homegrown CRM is still ahead.
Built by Freight Pros, For Freight Pros
Most freight agent programs hand you an off-the-shelf platform and call it a day. At Tallgrass, we opted to go in a different direction. Our CRM is built in-house, maintained in-house — and shaped by the people who use it every day.
“With the Tallgrass CRM, agent concerns get directly sent to the IT department,” John says, which allows the team to respond right away with a service-first mindset. That kind of access just isn’t something you see in this industry, and it’s exactly what makes our CRM a genuine advantage for every single one of our agents.
Four Years of Major Releases
The engineering team has delivered several major releases since the CRM was launched. Here are some of the highlights:
Online Payment Portal: Customers can pay their invoices online, meaning less chasing, faster cash and less paperwork for our agents.
MyCarrier Portal Integration: Carrier vetting went from a slow, glitchy process to a fast, rules-based lookup.
Reporting Engine: Need your book-of-business report delivered to your inbox every Monday morning? Done. The new reporting engine lets the team schedule any standard report to any recipient on any frequency.
LTL Rating Engine: Agents can now quote and book LTL freight directly inside the CRM.
Notification Engine: Agents and customers now receive automatic email updates at key moments, like a booking confirmation, invoice receipt and even a customer’s first shipment anniversary.
DAT & ITS Load Postings: Open loads post automatically to DAT and Truckstop, getting freight covered faster.
Triumph Pay Integration: A cross-departmental project that automates key parts of the carrier payment process. It went live, as John put it, “without a hitch.”
Auto-Invoicing: Automated customer invoicing means faster billing, fewer errors, and a back-office team freed up to focus on agent support rather than manual data entry.
Franchise Mode: A major architectural upgrade for larger agencies. Agency owners can now assign custom views and permissions for each team member, so everyone sees what they need to see, and nothing they don’t.
Then there’s the What-If? Program. When our team members submit their best ideas, they’re rewarded $100 when their ideas go live! John estimates that between 50 and 100 agent-suggested improvements have been greenlit and built over the life of the CRM, with entire releases dedicated to what agents have asked for. That’s what it looks like to really support our freight agents. We talk a big game at Tallgrass — and we have the receipts to back it up.
A Flood of Features on Deck for Q2
We’ve got big plans for CRM upgrades in the second quarter! The Trucker Tools integration is ready for testing, and My Freight World is right behind it. The View-Only Mode is coming for agents who need to give someone visibility into their book without giving them access to make changes.
Zip-to-Zip Miles will show route distances and maps on every shipment, while The Backyard Project will help agents connect with carriers already operating near their origin point with the right equipment, making it easier to build efficient and cost-effective routes. There’s also a round of mobile enhancements on deck that’ll help improve the CRM experience for agents on the go.
A Big Surprise for Q3
We can’t give away everything, but John gave us a little peek behind the curtain for what’s to come in Q3. The CRM is getting some significant and exciting upgrades! The best is yet to come.
“Words can’t say how much of a difference these next updates will make,” John says. “Agents have always loved that we make things faster and better, and Q3’s planned updates will take that to a whole new level.”
The Team Behind It All
With John at the helm of the TGF engineering team, the CRM operation is run by a talented, dedicated team. The team handles quality assurance, business analysis, CRM architecture, infrastructure, production, coding and so much more. John is humbled to be the captain of the ship.
“These professionals can solve any problem, and the amount of stuff they’ve built and rolled out? It’s impressive.”
Sean Richardson, President of Tallgrass, couldn’t agree more. “I’m proud to say that our technology team has a problem-solving mindset where nothing is impossible,” says Sean. “Our focus is to keep the TGF tech stack cutting-edge and innovative, always putting the needs of our agents first so they can run the best businesses.”
Always Getting Better
Something else that makes our CRM genuinely different is the speed at which it improves. This isn’t a typical software-as-a-service product where users take what they get and pray the vendor adds what you need someday.
The Tallgrass Freight Co. CRM is a bespoke system, designed with agent feedback at the heart. And the What-If? Program is a big part of that. Agents submit their ideas and if it lands on the innovation roadmap, the agent who submitted it will earn $100.
With more than 20 agent-suggested features implemented in the past year alone, the program is proof that Tallgrass is genuinely invested in its people and that when agents succeed, the whole company rises with them. Later this year, the engineering team plans to release a community-style What-If? board where agents can see all the submitted ideas, vote for their favorites, and add comments, putting the most valuable requests at the top of the queue.
For agents who are curious about where technology is headed, John’s team is exploring ways to bring smarter tools directly into the CRM experience; tools that could help agents analyze their book of business, surface opportunities and work more efficiently without ever leaving the platform.
Five years in, and the Tallgrass CRM keeps getting better. If you’re not yet part of the Tallgrass network, there’s never been a better time to see what a freight agent program that truly invests in your success looks like. Contact our team today if you’re ready to start the conversation.