Choosing courier companies over postal services

Some 10 years back, letters and parcels took anything between 3 to 6 days to reach its destination within cities even.  During this scenario, the courier companies stepped in to fill the need for people to send their postal material quicker. People were excited as the mail reached its destination within 24 hours though at a high price in the beginning. As and when the courier companies became popular, the prices also became moderate and people resorted to this route for urgent needs.  Yet another feature of the couriers is that they offer more services and shipping facilities than the postal service.
When you are using cheap couriers, you will have a greater chance of your goods arriving safely and on time to the destination. Due to technological advancements it is even possible to track your shipment every step of the way from the courier companies to the door. Most of the companies imply GPS software for tracking of the shipments. This services are completely absent in postal services as they are laid back with their delivery time tables and they seldom offer guarantees. Courier service becomes a much better option as not all areas of the world would be covered through postal service.
The courier companies deliver the packages at a surprising speed compared to the postal department. If you are willing to pay more, your goods would be arrived at the desired location accordingly as this industry you are actually paying for the speed above all others. it is always wise to shop around to different companies in order to get the best one that can actually ship at the speed you desire.  However it is quite easy to locate a reliable company as with the increase in demand many cheap couriers have been mushrooming.
Convenience is also a key advantage of the courier service. If you want to mail your goods, you need to go to their facilities with a postal service.  But couriers are at your convenience as they schedule pickups and drops at the convenient location. Also if the clients require something to be shipped back to the company, that is also possible. Such services are not usually seen in the postal departments.
Since speed is the mantra for courier services, you may get the fastest service possible with them. You can search for companies which advertise themselves as emergency couriers. Such companies would focus on delivery time and make sure that the things reach the destination in the least amount of time possible. An emergency courier would have ground transport options along with shipping, air transport including helicopters as well. Such advanced facilities are completely absent with the postal delivery.
Multiple shipping options are open with the courier companies. There would be express service that guarantees next day delivery in many cases. If the parcels are o large size, they can be shipped through sir or by sea, depending on the type of goods.  With the postal service, you are limited to certain timed delivery methods. They however do not typically guarantee their services.

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Posted by admin on April 1st, 2011 :: Filed under Courier Companies
Tags :: Choosing, companies, Courier, Over, postal, Services

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All about courier and courier companies

It doesn’t matter what you send and where you plan to send your materials or documents, courier services are ready and willing to handle it for you. A courier company is an organization that proffers special deliveries of packages, money, documents or information. Speedy delivery times than any other a method of transporting documents is what you get from the courier services. In an international business, the courier services has become an essential service in an enterprise, even though emerging technologies such as the fax machine and internet have gained popularity, still courier service is in demand.

Generally a courier company appoints an individual to make deliveries and the types of things that person delivers vary from messages to large packages. The person uses various modes of transportation and it varies from roller skates to airplanes.  Some of them used to deliver documents between businesses and others used to deliver goods between merchants and consumers. The courier firm appoints different individuals and some of them are specialized in certain types of deliveries such as legal documents or large parcels. Courier Companies keep track of their delivery times for the purpose of being able to provide accurate estimates when orders are placed so that consumers know when to expect a delivery. Each company has their own delivery time and the length of time varies depending on the distance and the product.

Finding a courier company to deliver your parcel anywhere in the world is practically easy because many companies offer cheap courier service. Courier service companies use the most technological innovations and made the courier process enhanced in all the remote locations and distant locations. Make sure what you are going to send in a courier and also, protect your delivery items in closed box or envelope so that it has no chance of missing. Once you done all the packing process, make sure that you are providing the correct address where you plan to send this parcel to. Write the correct address on which you want to send your items on a piece of paper and stick it on the envelope or box because this will remind the courier where the package should go.  

Searching for a cheap courier service doesn’t mean that you are finding the wrong one and the easiest way to locate your nearby cheap courier service is by having a glance at the local phone book or in search engines. Even though many modern technologies are there, they can’t fully replace the use of the courier service and still there is a constant demand for couriers in transporting goods and documents to both short and long distances.  The world is now in the peak of all the technological inventions, but still most of the people have the trust on the courier service and they find it as the best and the cheapest mode to transport their deliverables.

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Posted by admin on November 14th, 2010 :: Filed under Courier Companies
Tags :: About, companies, Courier

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Deciding To Go It Alone – Start Your Own Courier Company

In the old days, and I mean before-fax-machines-came-along sort of old days, you could set up a courier company with just a pen, a reporter’s notebook, an ashtray and a kettle for the couriers, an old van to do some of the deliveries in, and a typewriter for the invoicing. A few cards around local offices, and you’d soon be delivering urgent letters for local businesses.

How times have changed.

Since then, the same day courier industry has had to adapt to survive many changes.

Email has replaced the courier for pretty much any correspondence that the fax machine hadn’t already accounted for, and broadband is carrying all the data that used to go on tape.

These digital revolutions have changed courier work to carrying “anything which can’t be digitised”, ie couriers are generally now carrying products, not documents.

The products that the express pallet networks and overnight parcel networks haven’t taken, that is.

And nowadays customers won’t stand for scruffiness of any kind, so there’s been a revolution in the appearance of same day couriers and courier companies, with rule now being smart, well-turned-out couriers in smart vans, and imaginative courier company colours.

Locally-owned and managed courier companies with a single control room now find themselves having to compete with large national and regional concerns with an office in every major town.

So what’s the next big revolution? Well, just as the internet has changed the kind of work being carried, it’s also provided the opportunity for far-sighted couriers to succeed.

All same day courier companies, big and small, now compete for the same new business, and those who use the benefits of the internet in the control room will be the winners by miles:

The internet helps you to get the job right every time

Customers now expect same day courier companies to have a courier available, however busy they are.

They want your Friday afternoon performance to be as perfect as your Monday performance. They want every part of the country to perform equally well, which is often a real challenge for bigger same day companies who are, in their customers’ eyes, only as good as the weakest office or depot in the group.

However big your operation, if you rely heavily on your “own fleet” of couriers, which is quite slow to grow when needed, your customer will always suffer worse service at busy periods, and is likely to try elsewhere.

Internet-based courier work exchanges allow you to keep your own fleet to a sensible size for the amount of work you have, while still being able comfortably to cover all your work even at busy peaks.

The various courier work exchanges, such as www.mtvan.com, between them have 1000′s of members throughout the UK, the majority of them owner drivers, to give courier companies their own virtually limitless “reserve fleet”.

So the internet gives courier companies access to many more couriers than they could ever have known in the past, in a much wider area, and more importantly, it allows you to check up on them, without face to face contact.

And in recognition of the obvious anxiety many controllers feel about giving a job to someone they haven’t met, there is often “feedback” available, as there is on eBay.

For maximum reassurance many internet-based courier owner drivers will even allow you to track their actual position, using positioning technology which tracks their mobile phone signal or GPS.

So nowadays the internet allows you to have a national fleet of couriers who you know you can trust and track just like your own fleet. And using the internet, you really don’t have to have the cost of offices all around the country to manage them.

Use the internet to prove to your customer that he should stay with you

Customers are now asking that courier companies measure their delivery performance, ie collection and delivery times, and measure them against pre-agreed “Service Level Agreements”.

You need to be offering POD information on-line or you’re not even in the running.

The internet allows you to collect lots of detailed information like this, from couriers all around the country. Your couriers enter the POD data, and use that data to give your customers the overall performance summary.

If your customers like your performance, they’re less likely to look elsewhere. The internet allows you to prove to them that they like your performance.

Use the internet to offer 100% national courier coverage

Increasingly, courier companies need to offer national coverage, or they’ll lose out to the big boys at tender stage.

Customers like to buy a range of products and services from what they perceive to be national brands, whether it’s stationery from Lyreco, overnight parcels from Interlink, or cars from their nearest Ford dealer. They’re buying from a locally-owned company with national presence. The same is true with same day courier, so increasingly, you need to look big and act big.

With such massive nationwide courier coverage on offer on the internet at the click of your mouse, courier companies can nowadays be confident of being able to cover a job when they’ve “run out” of your own couriers, or if the job is collecting outside your usual area.

So one of the biggest problems affecting courier company growth, getting the balance right between fleet size and the amount of work, is now largely a thing of the past. Thanks to the internet.

Use the internet to offer your customers more value

You have a choice. You can be the courier company they choose because you’re cheap, or the one they choose because you’re slightly more expensive but worth it.

The more basic your service offering, the cheaper you’ll have to quote.

The more you offer your customer, the more you can charge, or at least the harder it is for him to look elsewhere.

The internet allows you to offer you customer more value, such as on-line booking, on-line POD enquiries, national coverage, and instant national performance measurement.

Charge competitive prices while making more profit

If you’re a medium sized courier company with, say, 25 couriers on the road, it’s easy to be put off by the power of the really big companies. With all that turnover, and all those offices, you’d expect them to be able to beat you every time.

But think about it. Their local office costs much the same as yours does, they employ the same number of people in the office as you do, and they can’t make diesel any cheaper just by being big.

So locally they’re no more profitable than you, and on top of that, they have the cost of the Head Offices and Area Supervisors and other regional management staff. How many “Regional Managers” and “National Operations Managers” do you employ at the moment? None, probably.

So, you already have a clear head start over the big boys, in the way you are set up.

Your costs are lower.

The internet allows you to maintain this advantage by covering work in a wider and wider geographical area without falling into the trap of wasting the extra money on more and more offices and staff to run it all.

By giving you access to couriers all over the country, the internet allows you to expand your business without the need for offices everywhere.

So if you get it right, you may well be able to win work from the big boys by offering very competitive prices against them, simply because your costs are lower.

And when a customer asks you “where are you based?”, you can say “we’re based on the internet, which gives us couriers all over the country at great prices”.

All of this is the reason why modern courier operations are now turning to the internet.

Once you’ve made up your mind to build a courier business of your own, the first thing you’re going to need is some customers of your own. Up to now, your customers have all been courier companies, middlemen, who have stood between you and some of the realities of finding and dealing with the “end user”, the customer. This is where the money is bigger, if you get the job right.

As you will have gathered, they play a useful role in getting the customers, taking on the work, sharing it out, paying you before they get paid, and generally taking on most of the risk. As an owner-driver courier, you will have benefited from all this, so you will have seen how much risk and work is involved.

It’s a formula.

“Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it.” (Chinese Proverb)

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Posted by admin on October 30th, 2010 :: Filed under Courier Companies
Tags :: Alone, Company, Courier, Deciding, Start

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