Peak season does not announce itself. Quote requests start stacking up in the last week of October, and by the time someone in the office says "it's getting busy," three days of requests are sitting unanswered. Intake rules written in the middle of that are worse than rules written now.
Here is what to decide before the first week of November.
What the data does and does not tell you
The Census Bureau publishes retail numbers that show how lopsided the holiday season is. Its 2025 holiday season release says estimated December 2024 retail sales by electronic shopping and mail-order houses were $146.6 billion, the highest total for any month that year. It also says 13.7% of 2024 hobby, toy and game store sales happened in December ([Census Bureau, Facts for Features](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2025/holiday-season.html)).
Those are retail sales, not freight volume. They do not tell you how many quote requests your office will get or on which lanes. My read is that shippers who sell into those channels have to move product before those months, so the pressure reaches your inbox weeks earlier. That part is inference.
Your own history is better data. Pull last October through December from your inbox or CRM. Count requests per week, note which lanes spiked, and note the days your brokers fell behind. That one export will tell you more than any national figure.
Decide who gets served first
When capacity is tight, "first come, first served" quietly turns into "whoever called loudest." Write a priority order down before you need it. A workable one looks like this:
- Repeat shippers with freight booked in the last 90 days - Lanes where you have carriers who run for you regularly - New shippers on those same lanes - New shippers on lanes you rarely cover - Everything else
Base it on what you can actually cover, not on who is biggest. A large shipper on a lane where you have no carriers should not jump the line ahead of a small repeat shipper on a lane you run weekly. Someone will push back on that. Settle it now, not on a Tuesday in mid-November.
Then make sure intake captures what the order depends on: lane, equipment, pickup date, and whether the shipper has booked with you before. If any of those is missing, the request cannot be placed in the order, and it will sit.
Tell new shippers capacity is tight, without quoting
The worst peak-season intake habit is saying "no problem, we'll get you a rate" to a shipper you cannot cover. It feels friendly. It also sends the shipper off to wait for a quote that may come late, high, or never.
Say the true thing. Here is a hypothetical script for a new shipper on a thin lane:
"Thanks. I have your request for Allentown to Atlanta, dry van, pickup on the 14th. Capacity is tight on that lane right now, so I can't promise coverage or a rate on this call. A broker will review it and reply by 2 p.m. tomorrow. If you need an answer before then, tell me and I'll note it."
A few rules sit behind that script:
- Never give a ballpark rate. In a tight market a ballpark becomes the number the shipper remembers. - Never say "we always have trucks." You do not know that. - Always name a next step and a time you can keep. - Reply even when the answer is no. A fast no lets the shipper call someone else, and they will remember who told them.
Some shippers will leave. Better that than a week of silence followed by a rejection.
Cover the hours and the holidays
Peak stretches the working day. Requests arrive at 7 p.m. and on Saturdays, and shippers who are scrambling for capacity tend to message several brokers at once. The first reply often decides who gets the load.
Write down four things for the season:
- Who owns the evening queue, and until what hour - What time the first morning review starts - What counts as a call-now event, such as a pickup today or tomorrow morning, or a problem on a load already moving - Which days the office is closed, and what the greeting and auto-reply say on those days
The holiday calendar is the part people skip. Thanksgiving week and the days around Christmas and New Year's need their own names on the schedule. If the phone greeting says you are open and nobody is there, you have made things worse than a closed sign would.
Then test it. Submit a request at 9 p.m. on a Saturday and see who sees it and when. If the answer is "Monday," that is your real coverage, whatever the policy says.
Staff the handoff
Intake gets a request into your hands. A broker still has to pick it up. During peak, that is where requests die.
Name one person per shift who owns the queue, and name a backup. Ask about time off for Thanksgiving week and late December now, while you can still move things around. Decide how many open quote requests one broker can carry before the overflow goes to someone else, and write down the number.
Set a target for the first human reply during peak, and decide what happens when it is missed. A manager gets a flag. The request moves to the next person. Pick one, so it is not improvised on the day.
The handoff note matters more than usual. Include the lane, equipment, date, commodity, repeat or new, and the exact words the shipper was told about capacity. If intake said "tight, no promise" and the broker calls back sounding like it is all easy, the shipper notices.
End each day with ten minutes on the queue. Anything older than your reply target gets a name next to it.
Run a dry run before the rush
In the last week of October, send five test requests through your own intake. Make one a repeat shipper, one a new shipper on a lane you cover well, and one a new shipper on a lane you do not. Send one after hours and one on a weekend. Then check who saw each, how long it took, and what the shipper would have been told.
Fix what breaks while the volume is still manageable. You will not get a second chance in the second week of November.
If you want help setting up peak-season intake rules for your brokerage, [book a call with Chosen AI Solutions](https://chosenai.co/book).
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau. "The 2025 Winter Holiday Season." Facts for Features, using Monthly Retail Trade Survey data. [census.gov](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2025/holiday-season.html)