Using a courier and diminishing your chances of corporate manslaughter

Image by rodneylibraries via Flickr

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? Delivering 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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Delivering to builders

One new courier delivery service we have started to provide is collecting and delivering items for builders who just don't want to wait for the builders merchants.

Two or three days for delivery when you are on a tight project build can make all the difference and if you want it urgently, we can help get it to you, on your schedule.

Items need to bagged or palletised for ease of movement and the driver will help unload if you let us know at the time of booking.

We have also found that the last few months that we have had enquiries from the domestic market for this service - this is far cheaper than hiring a van for a one off job. So if you have sack of cement, sand and hardcore that need moving give us a shout and we can see what we can do.

Sarah
Same day couriers for building services

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Basildon couriers, there is one that makes the difference

Another little gem on the internet, this time from a website that deals with consumer issues. It's a very good read, the link is at the end of the quote. The article goes on to make some suggestions on what can be done to make things easier for the consumer when expecting delivery...

* Companies that offer "delivery within 2-3 days" - Well, which is it? And does that include the weekend?

* Companies that say "your order has been dispatched", but not how it's being delivered (Royal Mail, Courier, 24 hours?)

* Companies that let you order when there's no stock, but don't tell you that it's back in stock and they shipped it - the first you know is when you get the "we tried to deliver but..." card

* Failed deliveries where the little boxes aren't ticked so there's no clues - so you drive to the sorting office to get a bit of junk mail that the kind postie didn't want to fold or leave outside, when you were expecting to be picking up your hi-fi.

* Couriers that aren't flexible. "We can't deliver to your work address. We don't deliver on Saturdays. You can't collect from our depot"

* Couriers websites that let you view online tracking... that's a day out of date

We all have to work, and it's not always possible to take a day off work waiting for the knock on the door. I've lost count of the number of days I've either:

* Waited in for a courier that didn't show

* Faffed about with parcel-tracking websites and "we called but..." cards

* Spoken to a courier's head office to arrange redelivery - and got very frustrated

* Tried to get a number for the courier's depot (not the call centre)

* Driven to a depot on a Saturday to collect something a courier wouldn't send out at a weekend

Help with mail order deliveries and couriers.

As a courier company, we are happy to delivery out of hours and on a Saturday, or even a Sunday. Parcel deliveries we do Monday to Friday, and any delivery estimates do not include Saturday or Sunday when it comes to the parcels.

Parcels we will try and deliver three times, and always leave a card with contact details on.

Same day or Express deliveries, we can tell you within 15 minutes what time your items will arrive, and we call our customers an hour prior to delivery, so if they have to nip up the shops for a pint of milk, they can do so without worry.

When looking for a courier service that understands what customer service means, look for someone local. Bigger is not always better when it comes to delivering your goods.

Sarah

Basildon, Chelmsford & West Thurrock Same Day and Parcel courier

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