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Awkward items, do you need a two man delivery team?

November 12, 2010 By

Two man delivery teams can be a tough job to quote for. When it comes to awkward and oversized freight there is no hard and fast rule as to whether you need a two man (or two woman) team or not.

hand truck
Image by neufcent9 via Flickr

Manual handling says that any items of 25kgs have to be lifted by two people, or as many people is appropriate.

Can your courier service deliver the heavier items when there is not forklift truck at the end destination? It all depends on what is being delivered and how well your courier’s van is equipped. Ours contain sack barrows and with careful, safe manouvering the item can be loaded onto the sack barrow and delivered into the warehouse with ease.

If the cost of two men teams is too high, you can always source help at the loading and delivery points. This works well for business to business customers but not so well for business to customer deliveries.

Business to customer deliveries

Communication between warehouse, store and courier service is essential in business to customer deliveries. Often the customers relay vital information regarding the delivery to the store. It’s essential this information is passed on to the warehouse and they also must pass it on. Information like elderly recipients (so likely to need extra help in bringing the items into the house) or those with disabilities. It helps the courier service prioritise their routes according to the customers needs. If the info is left in store the courier service cannot perform the tasks as well as they would want to.

Customers service is the difference in delivery

Customer complaints about stores triple when it comes to the delivery aspect, and often the culprit is bad or ineffective communication. If you are a retailer looking to lower the amount of delivery complaints, then communication is where you first look.

A two man delivery team can help you get even the most awkward, ugly sized freight delivered what they cannot do is read your mind :)

Sarah

Local delivery services

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#Couriers – Extra care needed when handling parcels

November 2, 2010 By

There is a lot in the the news about parcel security at the moment. The police in Dubai state that couriers are responsible for what they carry and therefore should check the packages they are delivering.

A female courier in Athens was injured earlier today when handling a package.

The woman was taken to hospital with minor injuries to her hands. The package exploded in the offices of the delivery company in the Athens suburb of Pangrati. Source: Courier injured after package explodes

Care must be taken by everyone involved in handling the packages, and anything suspicious must be reported immediately. Better safe than sorry. There are many substances that couriers cannot deliver by post and that cannot be taken by the postal services.

These items include

  • Explosives (obviously)
  • Aerosols
  • Alcohol that is 70% of higher
  • Batteries
  • Butane lighters
  • Clinical or drug waste
  • Flammable liquids
  • Gases
  • Dry ice
  • and many other items….

Some items are restricted by quantity or allowed in a certain set of circumstances. when the postal service can’t take them, people think that a courier can. Quite often they are restricted by the same rules that govern the postal service as to what they can transport.

The alternative is to use a same day courier, and we will be taking extra care over what we collect and deliver. Our drivers safety is very important to us.

You take care to0 – when packaging, when booking your courier service (make sure you get the right kind) and when having the courier collect your goods.

Care taken all round we mean safer deliveries.

Kevin

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If it’s valuable a same day courier should deliver it

October 13, 2010 By

If you have something that is valuable there isn’t a doubt in my mind who should deliver it. It should be us, or a another courier within the same day courier industry. If we cannot deliver something, we are always happy to recommend others within the transport industry.

Say you have a variety of items that need delivering –  the same day courier can inventory them at the collection point and call through what exactly they are carrying on your behalf. This service is popular with items that have to be returned under court instruction or a delivery of time sensitive materials. You just let the courier company know that this is required at the time of booking.

At the end destination or the delivery point, the inventory is handed over and signed for again. No loss of goods in transit and evidence that the delivery has taken place. Everyone in the chain is happy at what has taken place.

Compare that to other delivery services and what it would cost to factor this in?

Sometimes the personal side of delivery can be overlooked which is a shame. Good customer service plays a part in lots of peoples businesses. It plays a huge part in ours.

When you call us, a human being answers. Sometimes it goes to voicemail – that is because we are on the phone.

We answer our emails swiftly, respond to tweets and queries on Facebook.

We know the true value of human interaction in our business. Yes, we track our vehicles but you can also speak to the driver, which is dead handy if there is a traffic jam and you need updating as to when your cargo will arrive. Roads and driving conditions change rapidly and that also affects how your items are delivered.

If it’s valuable, knowing and talking to the people in the delivery chain can make all the difference.

  • Things don’t get lost
  • They don’t get broken
  • They don’t get left behind
  • You have complete peace of mind

If items are that important – we have delivered court evidence, medical samples, fuel samples, then you need to be able to communicate and have peace of mind.  We provide both.

Kevin

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Is you courier making your business look bad?

September 16, 2010 By

Couriers are professional drivers, and when you book a courier service (depending on what type of courier service) you expect a professional driver to collect and deliver your items.

So how can a courier make your business look bad?

  • They drive into your car park with radio blaring, everyone stops working to look out of the window, your business gets remembered for stopping an entire office
  • Smart vans, smart drivers… nothing can go wrong with that? Except for the driver doesn’t speak enough English to communicate their collection/delivery requirements
  • Courier drives a little fast, a little to precariously around a corner and when they deliver the items are smashed to smithereens.. but it’s ok, they got there fast…

Booking the courier is only half the job, you need to see that they can fulfil the task that you need completing. Then you need to ensure that they are competent enough to carry out the job without making your business look bad.

When you buy only on price, it can cost you a lot more than just money.

Kevin

Courier Delivery Service

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Do you trust your courier?

September 2, 2010 By

A New York art courier, James Haggerty, was recently entrusted with a painting worth £800k, and he delivered it to it’s destination, only to find the deal had fell through. So he took it with him when he went to a bar that evening… and the worst happened – he lost it.

He is currently being sued by the paintings owner for the loss of the painting.

Trust is very important when dealing with your courier, you have to trust that they will do as they say and you have to trust that they will deliver your consignments and they know what to do if the consignment is not accepted at the point of delivery.

So how do you know if your courier is trustworthy?

  • How visible are they?
  • How easily contactable are they?
  • Do they have testimonials?
  • Can you contact customers who have used them?
  • Do they communicate effectively with their customers and listen to feed back?
  • Do they have insurance and can you see the documents?

You may have noticed to the right of this post we have a few trucks with names on – LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. You can contact us in a number of ways and join us on these sites as well as emailing or calling us. We are highly visible couriers who are dead easy to contact. That’s not to say your courier isn’t trustworthy because they are not on these sites; the more time and effort a courier puts into their presence online and offline will give you a clear indication of how long they are staying in business, how big their business is and who in their company you can contact.

We are open and transparent, as much as a business can be. We even sell guides to becoming a courier, so our business ‘secrets’ are in the public domain. You can see on sites like LinkedIn who has endorsed our services as well as testimonials on this blog. It’s all there if you do your research.

Ask around on forums, twitter and Facebook and get people to tell you who they use and who they value – often they are different companies.

Now here is the crux of the matter – what research did you do when booking your courier service? How did you select them? How do you know they are trustworthy? or did you just book and hope?

You can cut corners in business, but as the owner of the painting found, couriers are not an area in which to do that. Without research and conversations, you will never know how trustworthy your courier is. That can cost you dearly.

Sarah

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