Search Engine Optimisation for Courier Websites
Posted by Tim Gilbert in Marketing for couriers, SEO Search Engine Optimisation for courier websites on Jan 19th, 2011 | 0 comments
Search Engine Optimisation is a very dark art, and everyone who claims to be an expert in it will tell you that everything you’ve been told by another expert is complete rubbish.
Even so, it’s probably worth listing some of the things you can do to your own courier business website to help it get to the top of the search results on Google and other search engines.
Why bother? Because most people in business nowadays look for suppliers on Google. So being there for them on the first results page is worthwhile, as it mean more enquiries for your courier services.
Everything mentioned here is...
Courier waiting or loading time
Posted by Tim Gilbert in Courier Operations Manual on Jan 14th, 2011 | 0 comments
Always let the courier company’s controller know as soon as possible if you are being kept waiting anywhere.
The customer is not usually charged for waiting until you have been waiting/loading for at least 15 minutes, although this varies from company to company, to avoid lots of charges on their invoice for trivial amounts of time. If you are kept waiting for longer, then they are usually charged for that first 15 minutes and for each subsequent minute. Make sure you know what your company’s policy is on this.
It helps the courier company’s controllers plan for your next job, if you keep...
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...
