Most businesses must ship parcels as part of their daily activities – particularly with the rise of ecommerce and the increase in online shopping. This means that logistics and delivery should be a big concern, both in terms of cost and service.
To save time, many businesses form a relationship with one single courier and remain with them for many years. However, this does not always provide the best service, either for the business or its customers. As such, before shipping your next parcel, consider the following:
Customer Experience
It can be all too easy to ship a parcel and think of your work as done. However, for your customer, delivery is one of the most important parts of the process. The means that the service must be up to standard. Although a separate company, the level of service your customer receives on delivery will reflect on your business. As such, assessing professionality and customer service is essential.
Service Offerings
Not all couriers are the same. Some offer great value standard shipping services, while others are known for specialist or same-day delivery. Depending on what you need to ship, you may require the services and expertise of a different courier. This may include temperature-controlled shipments or delivery of important business documents.
Tracking Updates
Just like you, your customers are busy people. This means they do not want to wait in all day for a parcel that could arrive between 9am and 9pm. So, when choosing a courier, enquire about their tracking. Do they provide instant notifications or updates? Do they give customers a delivery window? And do they offer alternative delivery points if a customer will not be home?
Price Comparison
When it comes to delivery, cost is not everything, but it should be an important factor. After all, if a courier charges too much, it could eat into company profits. To avoid this, be sure to use a delivery comparison or parcel broker service such as Parcel2Go.com, who negotiate the best prices from logistics providers across the UK.
Opening Hours
Your customers place orders outside of the 9-to-5 day. As such, there may be times where you need to send out an urgent parcel at an unusual time. If your current courier closes at 5pm, this could leave you stuck. To avoid this, look at their opening hours. This way, if an urgent order comes in, you know you can fulfill it.
Choosing the best courier is subject to the individual package and depends on many factors from price to speed. However, consider the above to help you make the right decision.