Courier Business Stuff

Muppet day. 8 hours to do 66 miles, deadline missed by FIVE HOURS, phone switched off for the entire day except for half a phone call an hour AFTER the deadline to say he’d broken down, not too clear about where he was though.

The surprising thing? We’ve used him before and he did the job perfectly, phoned in when he’d collected, did the job quickly and called in his POD straight away.

Never mind though, it was only a tender for a multimillion pound contract on behalf of a regular customer, nothing important. Oh, and the customer was surprised that we kept refering to the owner-driver as ‘he’ because the documents were actually collected by “an old lady”.

Posted under Courier Basics

Steve, thanks for quoting on a couple of our jobs recently. There was nothing at all wrong with your pricing, we just prefer where possible not to have transits running about doing small van work for us. Also in both cases a regular supplier called to offer to do the jobs for us – suppliers who have helped us out in the past always get priority with us, partly because I feel we owe it to them and partly because they’re a ‘known quantity’, we know what to expect from them. I believe many ‘Network’ members operate in a similar manner to us

That may make new members feel that the system doesn’t work, or that there aren’t any jobs, but that isn’t the case at all. Every ‘trusted supplier’ that we use today was once a new ‘Network’ member and had to go through the same thing as you’re going through now. I suspect that’s why ‘Network’ has such a long minimum subscription period – to allow you to work out how to use the site to your best advantage without you just giving up after a couple of months.

As for the posting of RJs FROM your area, I personally wouldn’t put an Essex to Scotland job on unless I was going to Scotland. If I’m looking through the Directory for your area I can see your ‘See My Journeys’ button lit up and it looks to me as if you’re loaded to go to Glasgow. So I’m not going to ring you with a Basildon to Plymouth. Posting the local RJ is (I think) fine, but I’d suggest that you set the start and end points to where you are and put something in the notes like ‘Available now and ready to go anywhere’ and make sure you list it as an open-ended RJ.
 

Posted under Courier and Freight Exchanges, Courier Basics, Uncategorized

I don’t see how you can complain that they all look similar. If everyone was to stop using ‘Network’ invoices and starts using Quickbooks you’d have the same situation.

Agreed that it’s a total ballache having the same company issuing two different invoices, pure stupidity really. If they’re going to send their own invoice then why raise the ‘Network’ invoice to start with? It’s easy to avoid the double payment problem though – just match the invoice against jour job reference or purchase order when the invoice comes in. You can only pay for each jon once, so the second invoice goes in the shredder.

I’m not sure what the “not technically legal” refers to, apart from the absence of correct business names on some of them. That’s just as common with companies’ own invoices though.
 

Posted under Accounting Systems, Courier and Freight Exchanges, Courier Basics, Courier Financial Issues

someone wrote:The only people to object to sign writing are other couriers you sub from when they are paranoid or terrified your going to try n nick their customers

As I’ve said before when this topic is raised, I’ve always had sign written vans.
1) Its my/our business and I’ll promote it as I want.
2) More professional appearence, especially when you/your driver wears a matching uniform
3) Less hassel and more leniency from Police, Traffic Warden & Security Guards when tipping/parked on double yellows etc!

Do a search for the last time this came up and the majority went WITH the sign writing!

1) I think the only people that notice are other couriers
2) Only your own customer would notice anyway and just the uniform would create the same impression, as would a clean white shirt, a tie (clip-on for H&S reasons ), polished boots and just ‘clean’ overalls.
3) I agree 100%. How about ‘generic’ signwriting though? Express Sameday Courier – no logos, no phone numbers. That way you don’t get the bad driving complaints or the fake insurance claims either.

I don’t care much either way myself. Given the choice of a plain van or a company liveried van for some jobs the plain van might influence the choice under certain circumstances. I know that many other companies are strongly against their subcontractors having liveried vans though.

Posted under Courier Basics, Vans

Small vans: Fiesta, Astra, Combo, Berlingo, Connect, Caddy.

LWB Connect is just about a Midi van, Dispatch/Scudo is a Midi, Vito is borderline Midi/Transit, Traffic is borderline Transit/Midi.

If you’ve got a van smaller than a Berlingo (Fiesta/Astra) then check what the goods are before putting your bid in.

Posted under Courier Basics, Vans

When you join the courier ’Network’ do the ‘Network’ give you any advice on invoicing procedures, dealing with other members, supplying PODs etc? Is there a simple ‘how to be a ‘Network’er’ page somewhere, or a standard ‘instruction’ email?

If not then maybe we could come up with something for new members to let them know how to get the best out of the ‘Network’ and how to operate to our unwritten ‘standards’. Perhaps that would stop some of the recurring problems?

Just a thought. Any comments?

Posted under Courier and Freight Exchanges, Courier Basics

While we’re on this subject can I point out to all our suppliers that in future we will only accept invoices printed on mauve-tinted 100gsm laid paper and delivered by carrier pigeon.

With up to TWO supplier invoices to handle a day we really don’t see why we should accept invoices delivered in any other fashion.

Oh and you can stick your £40 late payment charges where the sun doesn’t reach because in our opinion a message on a chat page is service of our notice to you that this is how we require our invoices delivered. Despite this it goes without saying that delivery of invoices by similar means is unacceptable.

Posted under Courier and Freight Exchanges, Courier Basics, Courier Financial Issues, Late Payment

So they booked you and cancelled when you were en route because they could do it cheaper?

Legally, unless you’ve agreed that cancellations will be charged for on a different basis, you can claim your identifiable costs plus your loss of profit on the job.

If they’d had a genuine cancellation an hour before the collection time I’d be tempted not to charge them anything but as they’ve taken the pi** and cost you money I’d charge them.
 

Posted under Courier and Freight Exchanges, Courier Basics