Courier Services | Same Day Courier Services, Essex

Archive for the ‘courier services’ Category

Does your business need to look at its deliveries?

Posted on March 11th, 2010 No Comments

One of the interesting things that come about when you are chatting to other businesses is how little they care about their reputation after they have gained their customer’s business. I shall be quite blunt, after the customer has paid, a lot of businesses seem to think that is the end of the relationship with the customer until they want to sell them something again.

: Image via Wikipedia

When a courier service collects late, that reflects on your business. It may be the traffic, it may be the company you use is short staffed but your customer doesn’t really care about that, and you sound less than professional when you start blaming someone else for what is essentially your problem.

It’s your problem because it’s your customer and your reputation, if you continue to use a courier service that doesn’t quite do what it says on the tin, then you lose business. That 10% you thought you were saving your company is now costing it, cheap courier services always cost twice as much and then some.

Then there are the customers that simply don’t come back, the courier that delivered was late, out of communication (or one that we recently heard – had placed the package in the wheelie bin, which was emptied soon after), it all affects your business, your bottom line. This means more money has to be spent on acquiring new customers, customers that could have been kept, if only your courier had delivered.

Things like not using the correct service for the type of product delivered, because you were busy saving money also cost you customers. The little things make a difference, like meeting a production deadline. There is much talk about going the extra mile, how far do you really go?

Next time you think you are saving your company some money, ask the boss how much it costs to acquire the customer in the first place.
Does your courier deliver more than just your products or do they deliver a bucket load of grief?

Kev
0800 917 7084

Posted in courier services

Same day courier services – 5 Reasons Courier Services Work

Posted on March 4th, 2010 No Comments

Courier services are an extremely important part of the day to day running of many businesses, regardless of their size. They deliver consignments reliably to make sure their client’s business runs smoothly. Some business contracts rely entirely on courier services to ensure important documents arrive on time for projects to begin efficiently and other businesses need to deliver important components in time for projects to stay on target (and within budget).

Delivery by courier

Delivering packages and consignments quickly and reliably are the key to many businesses success. In order for projects to complete on time certain parts and components need to arrive on time. In manufacturing; parts will often be ordered to arrive at specific times when they’re required, to save storage space. So getting that component on the right day means the project can complete on schedule, time and money saved all round.

In this blog we’ll look at 5 reasons that same day courier services work. Businesses have been using them for hundreds of years, and for some, they’re the life blood of the business. For example: catalogue and mail order companies rely on couriers to deliver orders to their customers.

1. Reliability
A business can be judged on its reliability. The more reliable it is, the more trustworthy it will be perceived. A business that is trustworthy will have many customers that will rely upon its services. If your business relies upon delivering orders to customers and clients then it is essential to be reliable. This means a delivery service that’s always on time and can be trusted.

2. Cost effective
Courier services work out far more cost effective than delivering an item yourself. Even if you just need a signature on an important document; delivering the document yourself is costly. Not only will it cost you in terms of fuel and wear and tear on your car, there’s also your time. Do you really have the spare time to deliver orders or documents yourself?

3. Projects complete on time
A courier service will deliver your consignments on time and in a reliable manner. This means that important projects will complete on time too. A building project may require components of a structure to arrive on a set date. The building project may contract experts to install the components for just one day. Therefore the components must arrive on schedule.

4. Customer satisfaction increases
By using a courier service your customer satisfaction will increase. Customers will be happy that their orders are delivered on time and professionally. Satisfied customers also do one very important thing; they spread a good word. Customers that are happy with your service will tell other people. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools to any business. So is customer retention.

5. Convenience
Outsourcing is a great way of expanding any business. So why worry about recruiting delivery drivers and purchasing delivery vehicles? It’s much cheaper to outsource the delivery of consignments and packages to a courier services company. They’ll have experience in time management to make sure your package gets delivered on time. They’ll also be insured to handle your package just in case it does get damaged in transit.

Whatever your same day courier needs, give us a call – we are happy to help.

Sarah

Posted in courier services

From carrying the flames, to the delivery of Olympic Games #van2010

Posted on February 23rd, 2010 No Comments

Those ancient Greeks were wiser than we give them credit for. If they were not fighting each other and having wars over women, then they had a lot of young men full of testosterone on their hands. They needed occupying. Thus the Olympic Games were born, perhaps a little simplistic compared to today’s Olympic movement but then as is now, the Olympics are the greatest non wartime movement of people, worldwide, and they do a tremendous amount for the nations involved.

Olympic Cauldron Vancouver (c) C.Perkins

We watched as the Olympic flame was passed to another person, the streets were awash with people to watch something that nearly 12,000 Canadians had done. The Flame had been carried across Canada, the biggest distance it has travelled in the history of the games – 45,000 kms. That’s the biggest distance in the history of the games, from hand to hand, across water, mountain, prairie. Through ice, rain snow and sunshine, the Olympic flame has been carried by children, men, women, or every age and every race. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger has got in on the act. Transporting the flame is a dream come true for many, and the co-ordination involved in transporting it is immense.

Transportation is the key to the Olympics, from goods to people to equipment and afterward it needs to be returned to it’s owner. We remember Atlanta and some of the transportation issues that they had, so when BT Tradespace told us we had won their trip to the Games we were thrilled, we were going to get a direct look of how transport impacts on delivery businesses in an Olympic city. We now have the edge over many courier businesses, how many of them have actually took time out to see what delivery issues the Olympics in 2012 is likely to have? Remember, the Olympics courier supplier contracts have already been awarded in 2008, the options that are left for us are as subcontractors to the main supplier.

Vancouver is a modern city, built on a grid like system. London is an organic city and is less grid like and more circular. London will not have the advantages that a grid system has. With the grid layout, blocks can be closed off and the traffic easily diverted around the closed areas. A perfect example of this was the day the Olympic torch was carried through the town. A block was closed, crowds formed, the torch procession passed and the crowd dispersed. 20 minutes delay. Repeat at the next block… in London, it would not be possible to do this.

So delivering the games brings new challenges and new solutions to delivering the Olympics in London 2012. Vancouver has been promoting itself as the green Olympics. The public transport system has geared up to meet the challenge with skytrains and the recently finished Canada line to Aberdeen (Aberdeen, Richmond not Aberdeen Scotland).

Vancouver view (c)S.Arrow

Couriers in the city have also adapted, more cycle and on foot couriers to continue carry on delivering vital documents. They have had to think creatively to get around the traffic restrictions. Businesses have closed in the downtown area, so deliveries have had to take place out of hours. The official courier of the games, Purolator has hybrid vehicles in place and sustainable fuel policies (like us) and has done an excellent job so far.

Some businesses have relocated to outside of the City on a temp basis so they can continue to work as usual - this needs to be considered by London businesses for 2012. The home counties can help businesses with this and rehome them on a temporary basis.

The temporary rehoming of businesses needs to take place the weekend before the games open to enable the couriers to move all the goods to their new locations as well as update their schedules and websites with the new locations. I think it’s safe to say, with foresight you can Olympic proof your business and not let it grind to a standstill.

Delivering the games in 2012? London needs to start planning now, it’s not long.

We are up for it and will be encouraging our staff to attend as volunteers and support the games where we can, we may be small but unlike a Juggernaut, we can turn on a dime the Olympics needs flexibilty and creativity, just like it did in Athens all those years ago – some things will never change.