Keeping in touch with the controller
Posted by Tim Gilbert in Courier Owner Driver on Jan 3rd, 2011 | 0 comments
Keeping in touch with the controller (dispatcher).
This is perhaps the most important aspect of doing courier work for a courier company. The controller is the person in the courier company office who hands the work out to the couriers. Keep the controller aware of your progress so that he/she can in turn keep the customer aware. It will increase your earnings, as when there’s a job nearby you’ll have a better chance of being offered it.
If you are having difficulty locating a pick-up or delivery address, let the controller know, and he/she will be able to advise the customer if necessary, and also...
Writing courier sales letters and emails
Posted by Tim Gilbert in Sales letters for couriers on Dec 14th, 2010 | 0 comments
Writing sales letters for your courier business is an art that can take a bit of practice. Here we highlight the four most common mistakes and offer some tips.
When anyone opens a letter or an email, they think “What’s in it for me?”
Nothing else. So you must convince them within the first few seconds that you can offer solutions to their problems. It takes only a few seconds after the email is opened for the judgement to be made: “read on or delete”. So it’s got to be right in the first few lines.
Here is a list of common errors made by sales people, both in letters and face...
Using mtvan to help get courier work
Posted by Tim Gilbert in Courier Operations Manual, Courier prices on Jun 28th, 2010 | 0 comments
Once you’ve got the hang of working for one courier company, you may want to see whether working for several courier companies will help you make more money. You make yourself available on one of the courier work exchanges, such as www.mtvan.com, and bid for work from other courier members and from end-users. Obviously, you have to avoid any risk of messing up work for one courier company because of work you’re doing for another.
You need also to be very careful to look after the commercial secrets of all the courier companies you deliver for. This obviously means not talking about customers and...
Tim Gilbert (Courier Industry).
Posted by Tim Gilbert in Courier Operations Manual on Jun 19th, 2010 | 0 comments
Tim Gilbert has been in the courier business since 1979, and ran courier businesses for nearly 30 years.
He was a founder member of the Despatch Association, the trade body for the UK courier industry, serving on the committee for several years and designing the code of practise.
Tim is now an independent consultant, and has helped many people get started in the courier industry, both as owner drivers, and in setting up their own courier business. For many years he ran a series of training seminars entitled “How to get started as a courier”, and this gave him the idea of starting...
How to get quotes for your courier work on mtvan
Posted by Tim Gilbert in Courier Operations Manual on Mar 10th, 2010 | 0 comments
There’s a useful tutorial video here, on how to add a courier booking to mtvan. You can use this to post work on the courier work exchange, or to use the invoicing system on mtvan, or both.
mtvan is a courier freight exchange, where people who have courier work that needs covering can look for people with vans who can offer good prices to do the work.
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