We often get people ring up to get a competitive price on their courier services, and in this blog post I am going to explain the true price to businesses of that cheap courier service.
Running a van, drivers and insurance isn’t cheap. Neither is the price of fuel these days and something will give if a courier has to lower their prices to keep or obtain the work.
- They will stop maintaining their vehicle
- They will co load
- They will cease to train staff
- They will cut corners with your items that they are delivering
Let’s look at the first point, a courier who stops maintaining their vehicle is more prone to a break down. How does that make you look to your customer? “sorry our courier broke down, that’s why your urgent delivery isn’t with you…” Of course you can blame the courier, but it was your choice in choosing them, it’s your fault.
What if you have a specific deadline? what if you are fined for missing the deadline? what if your business success depends on the outcome from the couriers delivery? Can you afford to take the chance for what is often a small saving? Have you really thought about what happens if your cheap courier cuts corners on their maintenance?
Co Loading isn’t a crime, it enables courier companies to take on less profitable work with other less profitable work, to make a decent living. If you use a courier that co loads, you are working to their deadline and not yours, and your items are sent with other peoples, who may not have packaged them as well as you have, causing breakages and damages that you were not expecting. Is that what you were expecting?
Training staff is a vital part of our courier services, not just in customer service or green driving techniques but also in manual handling and how to load a vehicle.
When you have a package arrive and it has footprints on it, you know training has been cut back on for a cheaper priced delivery, the staff can’t be bothered and are probably being paid just minimum wage – they have no real desire to work and do it just for the money, they cut corners and training them isn’t an option, as there is not a lot of money left over for this. This means using a cheap courier becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, you know the items will stand a good chance of damage, you may not know the courier in question has ceased to pay their insurance premiums and you know the packaging is less than adequate as you were saving money there too. The item gets broke, you can’t claim and even if you could the insurers would throw out the claim as it wasn’t packaged correctly.
Cutting corners to save money usually costs a business more, especially when using a cheap courier.
If you need to save money in your business, look at other areas before going cheap with a courier service, you may find it saves you money in the long term.
Sarah
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