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Archive for July, 2009

Couriers – weighing up the costs

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Does you company have an item that needs moving or delivering regularly? do you need to make a deposit at your bank or collect change? Deliver contracts that cannot be faxed? Tender documents that must meet a strict deadline?

Have you thought about what it costs you as a business when you get a member of your team to do it instead of booking a same day courier service?

You may be thinking “Bank/ post office not very far, get  the receptionist to do it or one of the admins, they can do it…” Sure, the phone may get unprofessionally answered to your  potential new customer, no biggie but you having a staff member drive their own vehicle to the bank / post office / customers office could cost you big time – corporate manslaughter anyone?

  • If they have an accident, you may be liable and they may not be insured for business use.
  • Expenses – 44p pence per mile, the hour and a half out of the office, the parking costs…
  • What about their work? Whilst they are doing something to save you money – who is doing their job?
  • What if the job over runs?

Getting it right is tough for any business, and for a one off getting a member of the team to do it once is a decision you have to make.

When it starts to happen on a regular basis, then you need to think is it actually saving you money to use a staff member and more to the point what happens and who is liable if it goes wrong.

For example when delivering a tender document, it may need to be delivered out of hours. It may need someone to wait for the bid writing team to finalise the last few touches, and a member of staff is sitting waiting to do this instead of going home. After leaving at 7pm 2 hours after their normal finishing time, they drive (a little angrily) to the office where the tender is to be submitted, they are feeling a little tired and cannot wait until their day is finished and they can go home. The deliver the document at 9pm that evening (would have been sooner but they don’t have a sat nav and wasn’t expecting to use one!) and the deadline has been met.

Well, it’s cost you 4 hours of pay so far, their mileage and now they are on their way home. The get home at 11pm (2 more hours of pay) and have their dinner, shower and bed. The next day they arrive in work tired and snappy. An accident could happen at any point whilst out driving or the next day with a tired employee and the cost could exceed far more than what a same day courier would cost.

When you are next compiling your risk assessment, have a look at how many hours additional driving your staff are doing. You could be in for a surprise.

Sarah

Same day couriers for documents, banking and many other things!

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Getting the right delivery service

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I have taken to following a new blogger, a gentleman I call the Gordon Ramsey of Change Management, Gerald Price. To make matters worse I can never recall whether he is called Gerard or Gerald, so I have christened him Big G as he is tall. It has been pointed out that at 5′ 2″ tall and most of the adult population is taller than me but the irony was lost ;-)

I asked why I would need this service; no amount of insurance payout could ever replace a lost passport – I’m not even sure what its monetary value is – but she insisted that it would offer ‘peace of mind’ considering that the contents of the envelope; the passport and the information on the application form would be of huge benefit to an identity thief, apparently.

Maybe.

The Royal Mail is a courier. We pay them to take our letters and parcels form one place to another. Now we may choose to pay a premium for our missives to be delivered more or less promptly but I utterly fail to understand why we should have to pay extra to ensure that the people we entrust our letters to don’t steal them and use the contents against us and to our detriment.

Protection Racket by Gerald Price

Well, Royal Mail is a postal service primarily and a courier service secondly. When an item is priceless the best option is a same day courier. This is considerably more expensive than ‘Special Delivery‘ but the plus points to the Courier service are

  • The courier that collects it, will be the one that delivers it
  • Its delivered directly to the correct department and not the reception area
  • If it gets ‘lost’ you will know about it that day. Royal Mail says you have to wait for 15 days before a item of mail is officially lost
  • Have you ever tried to claim on their insurance?
  • Passport / Identity theft is virtually nil when delivered by a professional courier

When an item is priceless or the loss of it would cause a great deal of aggro then don’t take a chance with it, send it with someone who cares and has the systems in place to deal with an item of value.

If you have the time to sort out a duplicate form, an insurance claim and don’t mind the hassle then £4.95 is a small price to pay and if next day delivery isn’t essential, then 39p is an even smaller price to pay!

Hope it was delivered safely for you Gerald.

Sarah

Passport collections and deliveries – for when it’s urgent

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Thank you for the hospitality

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Twice recently my express courier company Arrow Light Haulage was the guest of Road Traffic Solicitors in Kent, Kaslers.

The first time we went shooting.I had never been shooting before and Sarah was quite jealous and spent weeks inventing reasons for me not to go. I was onto her tactics though ;-) To be honest I half expected solicitors and couriers with guns to be a recipe for disaster ;-) but it was an incredibly fun day out and I tried something different. I really enjoyed it. I also got to chat with Laury Burr and Chris Lodge again.

More recently The Road User Benefit Scheme founder members of which my company is part of, was invited to a transport industry networking event, again by Kaslers.

Our Family080

This was a great afternoon where I spent some more time getting to know Michael Breeze and Chris Lodge better, both are great company.

So thank you Michael, Chris and Kaslers for your generous hospitality. Spending this time with you made me aware that you have the drivers interests at heart, and you really are the best people for the job when it comes to road traffic accident advice. The depth of knowledge held by the team at Kaslers is unrivaled.

Regards

Kevin

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