How much notice do you give a courier service?

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The easy answer is as much notice as possible.

Now many courier companies will take work regardless of whether they can deliver the outcome or not. We are one of those courier services that will tell you if we cannot do the job.

Well backed boxes

I had an email exchange with someone who knew of a same day courier requirement from the home counties into Central London, they didn’t send the confirmation until too late BUT they were pleased. Although we declined the work a national courier company were only too happy to take the job. Even though it would be unlikely they would make the deadline.

When working with human beings you have to take into account some very human foibles. Like the traffic on a Friday afternoon in London. What is only 6 miles on paper can take 2 hours to travel on a Friday. Would you sit in it in this heat? No? Then why do you think a driver will and still make your deadline? You are working with human beings, with human needs and human reactions and one of those is not to go into London late on a Friday as quite simply they are going to be there a long time.

In the risk versus reward scenario, a national carrier will undertake that challenge as quite simply they pay by the hour and often they don’t care, perhaps it’s better to say they care about different things. The things they care about may not match what you care about. Let’s be honest here - did you ask about the traffic? Did you ask about whether the driver could make the deadline?

National Carriers care about getting the customer whereas smaller courier services care about honesty and integrity, and actually delivering to the deadline that is set. Now back to risk and reward, you have paid what you think is a reasonable amount of money for your courier to deliver to your deadline, you have not asked any questions regarding traffic, staffing or anything else you have placed your trust in them delivering to your deadline on a day that the world and their wife are getting out of the city. What do you think your reward will be?

Sarah