Things To Look For When Choosing A Parcel Courier
First of all when it comes to choosing a parcel courier for next day deliveries then looking for one that is one hundred percent reliable must be the top factor that you should look for in a supplier. Having a very cheap parcel courier is great but not if they consistently let you down and fail to meet targets.
A cheap next day courier is useless if they cannot guarantee to deliver the next day. You will also find with a cheaper courier that they may be working to very low margins, and as such this may well appear as cracks in the service that they offer.
As a result of operating on a lower margin then they may be always in a hurry, working with less vans and staff than is ideal, which in turn can result in parcels suffering a harder life in transit than they should do, with more damage arising as a result. This demonstrates that it is worth spending a little more for reliability.
Secondly, when thinking about choosing a parcel courier then you need to think about what services that you need them for, such as are your requirements for local transport, nationwide or shipping parcels to another continent on a regular basis.
The requirements for each of these services whilst similar, are very different when it comes down to the logistics of how they operate. This is no more so than with International shipping, whereby a whole host of paperwork may need to be filled out when shipping parcels abroad, and you would be well advised to use a specialist for such a service.
You also need to think about when you want your parcels collecting each day as not all parcel companies as flexible as each other, some may give you a set collection time, where as others may come out to you an hour after you phone them up. Such levels of service will vary between parcel couriers.
Also parcel tracking is becoming ever more important so find out if your parcel courier offers a real time service, whereby you can see where your parcel is at any time in transit.
Also always take up customer references. And always check the terms and conditions of the couriers contract, and ensure that you are not “Locked in” to the contract in case you have problems with the company.
These are all key factors that you should take into account when selecting a parcel courier.
