The quality of your courier service can heavily influence the overall efficiency of your business. While your business may not live or die entirely because of the merit of its courier service, you still want to make sure that the courier provider’s quality is up to standard nonetheless.Before you choose a courier service to fulfill your small business shipping needs, be sure to keep the following things in mind.
Size and weight specifications
Make sure that you determine the courier services size and weight limitations as soon as possible. The courier service is only as valuable as the extent to which it can accommodate the spatial dimensions and collective weighted load of your packages. Naturally, your small business will place a greater priority on the limitations of the courier services’ size and weight requirements if you happen deals in more heavy physical objects than not.
Convenient accessibility
Prioritize investing in a courier service with convenient, consistent accessibility throughout the year. The more immediately available a courier service is, the more efficiently your business will be able to serve your target market. Communicate with prospective courier service providers to confirm whether or not they can realistically be readily available for high-urgency packages that you need shipped on short-term basis.
Cost efficiency
As is the case with any element of small business operations, cost efficiency is key. You need to confirm that the cost value is worth your investment before you make the final decision on any courier service provider to work with. Don’t make a decision to move forward with any courier service until you have confirmed the cost of every fee associated with their delivery process.
Though some small business owners may make the mistake of assuming high price to be indicative of high quality, there may be circumstances in which the more economical options are actually the highest value available. Rather than only making an analysis of the cost, make sure to confirm that the fundamental policies of the courier service are in-line with what you prioritize as a service that is worth investing in.
Insurance for failed deliveries
No matter how efficient and reliable your business may be, you have to plan for the contingency that certain shipping mishaps may cause deliveries not to reach their final destination at times. To mitigate the risk of an unexpectedly failed delivery, invest in a courier service provider that has a policy of securing any undelivered goods with a form of insurance.
A professionally-operated courier service provider will not hesitate to make insurance available, as they will have the fundamental level of dependability to be counted on for successfully delivering goods under normal circumstances.
Tracking and and delivery confirmation
Never settle on a courier service unless they have a policy of confirming the successful delivery of all shipments. Upon successful delivery, the courier service provider of choice should have a protocol of confirming that said delivery was accomplished. The ability to assess the progress of the shipments in real-time may be more or less valuable depending on exactly how long your average shipment time is, so keep this in mind before deciding to invest in the surface based on tracking availability. There are resources available at Flagship Courier Solutions for more information.