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Goodbye Edward Stobart

Sad news today for the freight and transport industry, Edward Stobart, known to many as Eddie Stobart’s face before selling the family business over to his brother.

A spokesman for Stobart Group said: “Edward built Eddie Stobart Ltd into the iconic brand and business we know today before selling the company to brother William and business partner Andrew Tinkler in 2004.

“William Stobart continues the family involvement in his role as chief operating officer of Stobart Group.

It’s sad as Edward was just 56 years old, although he had a history of heart trouble (according to some reports) you’d like to think he’d be trucking into his 90′s.

Of course the Stobarts the haulage company will be run as normal and you’ll continue to see his legacy on the road.

Sending his family our condolences.

Kevin

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Can a courier deliver late at night?

Up until recently a same day courier company would deliver when instructed to by their customer.

But now customers have something else to consider when booking their delivery – whether it will be too late for the recipient and whether it breaches their privacy.

A complaint was made to the regulator and then to the Complaints Commissioner in relation to a courier sent by the FSA which delivered a package to the complainant’s husband at 9pm at night.

The complainant said the courier banged on the door and disturbed her and her children during the process of delivering a package of 5,000 pages of documents to the complainant’s husband who was under investigation by the FSA.

She claimed the regulator had acted in a manner which did not have “any regard for [my] or [my] family’s privacy and Human Rights”.

The complainant requested a “formal written apology and an ex-gratia payment for the upset and inconvenience caused by [the member of the enforcement team] and the FSA.”

Something that Business to Business customers need to take into account when booking their courier service.

Sarah

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Good news on the horizon for Hauliers

And motorists it would seem.

Prime Minister David Cameron today gives his strongest hint yet that his government will ease the burden on hard-pressed motorists and hauliers.

Less than a week before Chancellor George Osborne delivers his Budget, Mr Cameron made it clear to the Press and Journal that help is on its way. He said he understands how drivers’ wallets “are being hit hard” because of soaring world prices. He added: “The Budget is coming up next week, and we are considering the options, including a fair fuel stabiliser which could support motorists when oil prices are high.”

Read more: http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/2184115?UserKey=#ixzz1Gz7X8pvk

Sarah

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Fuel stabilisers and fuel costs.

Good news for us motorists, or so it would seem. On the other hand some news reports are suggesting that unless motorists pay for all the potholes to be filled in, the roads will be virtually undriveable anyway.

The Government is hinting strongly that it won’t be adding the 1p per litre fuel tax at the next budget. At the moment it costs £102.00 to fill our Transit up with conventional fuel and £60 with LPG. This of pushes up the price of delivery.

As one person said on the Facebook update at the weekend “Filling your car up is a better diet than weight watchers, you can’t afford to eat and run a car”.

Think about it from a business point of view, how can the customer keep paying for goods that are increasing in price constantly? They can’t, wages are not keeping up with the cost of living and as a business creeping expenses have to be watched carefully.

Let’s hope the proposed fuel stabiliser is pushed through and the cut in costs is passed on. It was rumoured that inflated prices were being charged in supermarket filling stations as they had had a poor trading quarter. How much truth there was in that rumour I don’t know. What I do know is Tesco is currently more expensive by 3p a litre than our local Jet garage. Traditionally it was the other way around.

There are still talks of rural area discounts which would be a step in the right direction. But what counts as rural? Some parts of Essex like Burnham on Crouch are remote, the Dengie and parts of Colchester. These areas may not be considered rural but having worked extensively in these areas for the last 10 years, I’d have a hard time convincing the residents who can get a bus to Chelmsford on a Monday, but the return bus isn’t until Wednesday.

Fuel and fuel prices are going to be on everyones lips for the foreseeable future.

Let’s hope it’s because the price is finally coming down again.

Kevin

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Trouble shooting parcel couriers

Parcel Couriers can have a terrible reputation and today we find some of it is justified.

For our regular customers we use a third party parcel carrier to deliver the odd parcel that they have. This is a win/win for all of us as we get to look after all the delivery aspects, the customer gets a good price and the parcel carrier still gets the job.

If it goes wrong, the customer let’s us know and we chase the parcel carrier to see what the problem is and resolve it.

The first thing we have to do is find out where the parcel is, easy you may think but the parcel system is not set up to be easy; it’s set up to be fast – see a day in the life of a parcel.

We need to establish where in the “system” the parcel is, on Friday this took us 5 hours and we still didn’t get to find the parcel in question. This morning we did locate the parcel and it is on a van awaiting delivery.

When we asked the parcel delivery company why they didn’t locate the package sooner or deliver it (they sat on it for a week) their response left us speechless.

They said it was undelivered as they didn’t have a driver.

That’s our problem as we thought they were professional. They had lost our business once before and worked hard to get us back, now they have blown it again. Needless to say we are furious, our customer is unhappy but the parcel company is happy. In their small print they have the statistic that 90% of parcels are delivered the next day. They are still getting paid even though their abysmal service has cost everyone else in the chain.

90%? Great! But what happens when your parcel is one of the 10% not delivered?

If our parcel was still in the depot we would send one of our Nottingham based drivers to collect it then complete the delivery. We would make a substantial loss on that package that we could not recover from the customer or the parcel company. It doesn’t sit with our green company culture to do this, but we can honestly say that we did our best.

For your the customer, the one who deals directly with the parcel company life is tougher. It’s you who is losing hours on the phone chasing and tracking your package. It’s your business hours wasted which are billed out at a higher rate than what your package costs to send.

1 x package for national delivery = £12 +VAT

5 x £10 per hour for admin member to chase the problem = £50 + taxes and NI costs

Total = £62 + to send a parcel by a parcel company.

That’s an expensive parcel delivery whichever way you look at it.

For our parcel carrier their slapdash attitude has cost them our few thousand parcels per year, we have sourced a new provider that has a better grasp of customer service and promises 99% of parcels delivered. They cost a bit more than £12 a carton but they will be saving us £62 in wasted time.

Sarah

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Fuel saving tips #3

This is the third post in a series of quick fuel saving tips, please subscribe so they are delivered directly into your inbox – it will save you money!

Sitting in queues costs money and wastes fuel. Avoid congestion by checking the local radio news or trafficmaster for delays before you set off. If you hear of delays and jams, route around them. Travel before and after the rush hour if you can. Leaving 15 minutes earlier can save you half a tank of fuel over 5 days.

Kevin

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Fuel saving quick tips #2

Reduce weight, and fuel consumption, by removing unnecessary items from your vehicle that do not need to be there for a particular journey. This can include buggies, golf clubs, tools, footwear and all those things you keep ‘just in case’

That also means removing things that increase drag – roof racks and roof bars should come off if not in use.

Consider subscribing to have the fuel tips delivered to your inbox.

Kevin

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Quick fuel saving tip #1

Make sure that your tyres are inflated to the correct pressure. Under inflation by 7psi will waste half a gallon of fuel in every tank. Inflating to the vehicle manufacturer’s guidelines -which are based on cold tyres, so use the petrol station nearest your start point to avoid your tyres warming up and being inflated to the incorrect psi.

You can find more fuel saving tips here.

Subscribe to our blog, add the feed to your reader so you don’t miss out.

Kevin

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