Courier Club Blog

Free Courier Club CRM

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 16:52:55 +0000

Managing customers is hard enough without having to trawl through pieces of paper, Post-It notes, spreadsheets, databases and emails to find the thing they’re calling about.

Let’s not even mention suppliers and other contacts that you interact with on a day-to-day basis.

The new Courier Club CRM allows you to centralise all your customer, supplier & contact interactions so that you and your colleagues can access important information from anywhere, any time.

Using a simple diarised system you’ll never forget that important meeting or that email follow up for the multi-million pound deal. Easily see the tasks you’ve got to do today, those that you’ve missed and those that are coming up.

Record tasks, emails, telephone conversations and meetings against your contacts so that you can provide great customer service every time.

Don’t worry if you have a spreadsheet or database already. Send us your data and we’ll try and import it for you too… all for free!

Centralise your customer & supplier databases
Easy to use
Cloud hosted - access anywhere & any time
Record all your interacts against your contacts
We’ll import your data for you (where possible)

Whatever size you are, Courier Club CRM is free, for all members. Forever.

Just log in to your dashboard and click the CRM button!

Merry Christmas!

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 11:39:02 +0000

I’d like to take this opportunity, now that the world hasn’t ended, to wish you a very merry Christmas and a very prosperous new year from all the team at Courier Club.

We’ve been working hard all year to bring you partners, deals, features and tools to help you get the most out of your business. Unsurprisingly, our plans for 2013 are no different. We’re hoping that the 1st quarter of 2013 will bring you even more features that will help your business flourish.

As such, our developers have been packaged away in boxes full of cotton wool ready for their festive period hibernation.

Once again, Merry Christmas and All the best,

David & the Courier Club team!

Free CRM for all members

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 16:49:49 +0000

We’re pleased to announce that the new Courier Club CRM system is now in beta testing and available to use by all our members.

You can log in using your normal username & password here: http://beta.courierclub.co.uk

It is a beta version so if you do encounter any bugs we’d love to hear from you so that we can fix them before it’s made available on the live site.

What is a CRM?

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It allows you to manage all your contacts (customers, leads, suppliers, subbies etc) all in one place. Not only that but each contact can have tasks/activities assigned to them allowing you to manage your time (and your staffs’ time) more effectively.

It’s Free!

Like everything we do it is really free. We want to build systems that our members can use to help them make the most from their business. Our CRM system is yet another building block to help our members save time and money when dealing with prospects, customers, clients, suppliers, subbies and more.

Features and Benefits

Create tasks/activities so you don’t forget that important quote/meeting/phone call
Manage all your contacts in one place
Save time and money
Prioritise tasks/activities
Manage each activity’s progress
Set target completion dates
Easy to use interface
Search for contacts, companies and activities

Did you notice?

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 14:55:49 +0000

We released a quick update to the dashboard toolbar last week (above). Hopefully it makes things a bit clearer and easier to understand when you first log in.

The alert number above the dashboard shows the number of current traffic alerts from the 3 highways agencies (England, Scotland & Wales). The number above the Perks indicates how many perks are available to you.

All the best

David & the Courier Club team.

Courier Job Opportunity: Weekly Stockport - London

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 11:36:22 +0100

@pudology has asked us to see if we can source couriers/owner-drivers who have the capability to transport chilled goods from their base in Stockport to multiple destinations in London.

A brief spec as follows:

Ability to transport chilled goods
Weekly/Fortnightly Delivery
Stockport to multiple London destinations (plus a few outside London)
Chilled deserts
up to approx 30kg

Let us know if this is something of interest and we’ll pass your details on, alternatively you can get in touch through their website.

Welcome to your new member dashboard! Our developers have been...

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 17:03:18 +0100

Welcome to your new member dashboard! Our developers have been burning the midnight oil and have come up with a more effective landing page for when you log in.

The dashboard update allows you to access some of the most used parts of the members area without having to trawl through menus and links.

Highlights of the new dashboard:

One-click navigation to key areas of the site
Traffic Alert ticker showing the current incidents on the UK roads
Localised weather reports
Latest industry news
Latest Courier Club tweets
Your latest tweets

We hope you enjoy the new functionality and we’ll will be adding to it on an ongoing basis. So if there’s something you’d find useful let us know!

All the best,

David & the Courier Club team

Vehicle Management: Never forget your MOT or service dates

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 16:04:00 +0100

Our new Vehicle Management system allows you to manage your van (or fleet of vans) easily and simply.

Never forget an MOT or Rod Tax date
Never forget a service due date or insurance date
Never forget to inspect your fleet
Consolidate all your vans in to one system

By adding your van(s) details to the system we can remind you when these important things need to be done - both by email and text message.

As the site grows we can use these details to tailor the site to your individual needs. For example, if you have a single small van then we’ll provide information suitable to you that may not be suitable to a big haulier.

You can add as many vehicles as you want (even your car/motorbike if you like)!

What’s even better is that this is all FREE! There is no cost for the text messages or emails.

All the best

David and the Courier Club team

Free Agent: Accounts software, simplified

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:19:54 +0100

We’re pleased to announce another new partnership for our members: FreeAgent.

FreeAgent provide award winning accounts software for the small business and freelancer. It’s easy to use and the pricing model is really easy to understand:

Sole Trader - £15 + VAT pm
LLP/Partnership - £20 + VAT pm
Limited Company - £25 + VAT pm

As a member of Courier Club you not only get a 30 day trial but also a 10% discount on your monthly subscription - not bad going! Simply log in to the members area and click on the Perks menu item.

PCPro magazine described it as, “Could easily become your most important application for administering your business.”

“It simplified my accounts, took the stress away and changed my one day a month into thirty minutes. It enabled me to centralise my invoicing, bills, bank accounts and quotes.” - Mark Crosby, Blue Cherry

The 30 day free trial means you can give it a go without even spending a penny.

David & the Courier Club team.

Offer Next-Day Pallet Services to Your Customers

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:25:01 +0100

Next-Day Pallets and £500 Credit Account

Ever had a job/booking that you couldn’t cover because it was outside your area, difficult to transport or just that a same-day courier service might be too cost prohibitive? Or even you’ve wanted to offer a pallet service but haven’t been able to stump up the money required to join a network.

Courier Club are pleased to announce that our members can now utilise our new partnership with a national pallet network.

By being a member of Courier Club you can now get automated, instant, no-obligation quotes on next-day pallets for your customers. When you book a pallet you can utilise a £500 credit account (which we’ve created for each of our members) so that you can get the best out of this great service.

Latest Partner On-board! Save on MOTs and servicing

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 12:01:00 +0100

Start saving on your servicing and MOT bills

One of our major goals at Courier Club has always been to try and help you save money on your day-to-day costs - from mobile phones and fuel to insurance and everything in between. And that reflects in the partners we choose to work with.

However, we’ve been wanting to partner with a truly national company that can help you save money on your van servicing and MOT. A partner that could offer you, the Courier Club member, exceptional value for money and quality customer service.

Today we’re very excited to unveil our latest Exclusive Gold Partner…

With 36 locations nationwide, welcome to Ford Retail

Offering low cost servicing and MOTs to all makes and models of van throughout the country (that’s right - you don’t have to own a Ford van to take up these offers). They also provide discounted genuine Ford parts and will price match like-for-like tyres within a 5 mile radius.

All servicing, MOT and repair work is carried out by Ford trained technicians but at prices you’d expect to see from local, independent garages. Not only that, but they will provide a free courtesy vehicle* while yours is in for work so you’ll never be off the road!

Go over to their profile page for more information and book your MOT/service today!

All the best,

David and the Courier Club team.

* Advance booking required, subject to availability.

Big Announcement Coming This Monday

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 16:00:00 +0100

A new, national partner is arriving at Courier Club on Monday 13th August 2012. Keep your eyes peeled….

Updated Members Dashboard

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 10:17:22 +0100

One of our pet hates in the members area of Courier Club has always been the menu navigation. It’s done us proud over the last 8-9 months but with the plans we have it was time to make a concerted effort and update it now before it became a massive job.

You’ll see when you log in that we’ve changed the menu from being on the left side of the screen to a horizontal one just below the red title bar. Not only does this give us extra room to build new parts to the site but it also looks pretty snazzy too!

We hope you like the update.

David & the Courier Club team

Courier Club Directory: Update your profile

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 11:29:18 +0100

The web is an unforgiving place. A lawless savannah where Google and Bing rule the roost with their search engine algorithms and SEO black magic. A place where nothing stays still for long.

At Courier Club we’re no different. The site is continually being updated and refined with feedback from our members and new services from our development team.

This week sees the enhancement of the courier club directory.

To make it easier for the hundreds of people using our search engine we’ve enhanced our search results to allow your courier club directory entry to be as effective as possible. The more your profile is filled in the more exposure you’ll get. As a famous meerkat would say, “simples”.

The enhanced search results now include your:

Company logo
Company name
Location
Telephone number
Service specialities
Website URL
Social media links (Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn)
Link to your Courier Club Profile

Members Profile page:

Company logo
Company name
Location
Telephone number
Website URL
Service description
Service specialities
Social media links
Location map

The more detail you add the better your directory entry will be. The better your entry is the more chance your entry will be seen.

www.courierclub.co.uk

Courier mistake sends corpse to the wrong place

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 11:59:00 +0100

We just happened to find this little gem of a mix-up!

A freight forwarding company in the US made a slight mix up by diverting a woman’s torso addressed to a research facility in Florida to a wholesale shopping club in Massachusetts instead.

The rather large parcel was marked “perishable” but staff at BJ’s Wholesales Club’s head office didn’t think anything was out of the ordinary - after all they receive large, perishable items quite often - check out the 12 - 14oz Lobster Gram ($119.99).

Luckily an eagle-eyed member of staff realised the delivery was 1,500 miles away from where it should be. They started opening the package but saw the packaging list and realised it wasn’t a gourmet lobster but something more unsavoury.

Sgt. Jonathan Kalagher told WBZ NewsRadio 1030, “They started opening the package and they saw the description of what they were opening, that it was a torso of a female. They never saw the torso. They saw there was packaging and some type of gel. They immediately notified their supervisor”.

Staff contacted the research facility, who arranged for the torso to be picked up and delivered to the correct address.

VOSA Driving Regulations for Couriers

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 11:07:51 +0100

We’ve created a poll over on our Facebook page asking whether, as an owner driver (or even a courier company), you think their should be similar legislation in place for sameday couriers (max hours driving, breaks, etc.) as with HGVs.

We’d be interested in your views. The link to the poll is here: VOSA Poll

www.courierclub.co.uk

Subbies: What Colour is Your Van?

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 11:07:00 +0100

We know, like the rest of you, business is getting harder to come by as the effects of the Euro crash are beginning to hit our shores. The industry appears quite flat at the moment and there are no signs of recovery just yet.

It seems that the “rapid response” sameday couriers can give customers is becoming more of a luxury than a necessity these days. No doubt cost is an implication here and something that cannot be addressed with the fragmented nature of the courier industry. Plus some customers are happier to take the risk and save themselves a few quid with parcel networks in the vain hope that their delivery doesn’t become damaged/misrouted through a mainly automated system.

These are issues that courier companies have and are dealing with on a day-to-day basis. But as a subbie, the man in a van, what can you do to ensure that you’re getting all the business you can from these courier companies?

You’ll be surprised to know it’s not always down to price!

Here’s a quick checklist to ensure your name and number is at the top of the pile when a courier company needs a subbie:

Cleanliness - remember, you’ll be the courier company’s face to their customer so they’ll want someone who portrays their image correctly. That means clean shaven (neat beard/moustache), clean clothes & shoes/boots, it can be hot in the cab so make sure you’ve got a can of deodorant at hand and make sure your hands are clean too!
Reliability - don’t just make sure your van is in top nick, but never turn n a job down you can cover (see stay safe below) just because you fancy a lie in, or it’s friday and the football is on. The on-call traffic coordinator won’t want to ring around a load of subbies to get the job covered. If they know that you are more likely to accept a job - you’ll be the first person they’ll probably call. Bare in mind that you shouldn’t risk burnout (or your family life) just to take a job though!
Stay Safe - this goes hand-in-hand with reliability. While you aren’t required to carry a tacho, take regular breaks and keep within driving rules. An accident could take you off the road for a long period of time, a more serious accident could make you liable for prosecution.
Look after your van - keep it clean and well serviced at all times. Some courier companies will want your van to be a maximum of 5 years old, anything older and they may look elsewhere. Older vans are still ok though - just make sure they’re well maintained and looked after.
White - sadly the cliché is true. Make sure your van is plain white with no markings or signage. If you want to have your name on your van then use a magnetic sign that can be taken off when doing subbie work.
Price - Don’t sell yourself short or price yourself out of the market - easier said than done I know. Agree a pence per mile (PPM) when you sign up to be a subbie with them. OK, so I said it’s not always down to price and it isn’t but you can probably ask for a higher PPM if you can prove you’ll be better than other subbies on their books.
Customer Service - Always be friendly to the traffic coordinator. Try and be as helpful as possible. The same goes when collecting and delivering your consignment. “People buy from people”, so if a traffic coordinator has a choice of 2 subbies to choose from they’re more likely to choose you.
In the cab - The cab is your office. Always make sure you’ve got enough working pens and pencils, your phone is fully charged, your Bluetooth is working properly, a packet of mints and/or chewing gum. Oh, and never smoke in your cab - there’s nothing worse than the smell of stale smoke wafting in through the door when you’re delivering.

If you can think of anything else to add/ammend to the list let us know and we’ll amend the article accordingly.

www.courierclub.co.uk

Thanks to Steven Harrison from Gator Couriers for his updates.

O2 Updated Offers

Thu, 24 May 2012 13:14:28 +0100

O2 have just updated their profile page with their latest business tariff, “On and On”.

Unlimited calls
Unlimited texts
Massive 1Gb of data

From £21.67 per month (ex VAT)

You can call their business team on 01744 780062 or use the contact form on their profile page to get more information.

Greener Driving Saves You Money

Mon, 21 May 2012 13:36:00 +0100

As this blog is being written there appears to be a small fuel war erupting - with Sainsbury’s leading the pack on supermarket prices (cutting petrol prices by 3p per litre, as well as offering customers an additional 5p off per litre if they spend £50 in store).

However, when you consider other European countries, the prices we pay for fuel in the UK is rising and rising. Planned government taxations are due to hit in August to force the price up even more.

There are steps you can take as an courier to reduce your fuel costs and become greener in the process:

Drive with calm and serenity
Aggressive driving eats up fuel. Sometimes you need to put your foot down to get out of a sticky situation or to overtake that damned tractor, but by driving with more finesse will help you lower your fuel bills.
Be gentle on your brakes
As with the above point, try and plan ahead with your breaking. Breaking uses up kinetic energy and this is bad for your fuel economy and also bad for your brakes! After all the less you use your brakes the less you need to get them replaced.
Save your clutch
Don’t use your engine to slow you down. Using your engine to break (gearing down) is really bad for fuel consumption and adds strain on your clutch. Break pads/discs are cheaper to replace that clutches.
Effective gear changes
In most vehicles it’s best to change gear around 1,500 - 2,000 RPM. Anything above this and you start to lose fuel economy.
Switch off your engine
Not while you’re moving obviously. But when stationary, idling is effectively 0mpg. If you think you’re going to be stationary for some time think about turning off your engine. This stops burning fuel and reduces pollution.
Keep left
Let all the other fuel guzzlers overtake you. The only winner is you when you don’t have to visit the pumps as often!
Use cruise control
If you’re lucky enough to have cruise control, use it. Especially on those motorway miles - the on-board computer is much more effective than us humans at maintaining a constant speed.
Slow down
Sometimes the goods you’re carrying need to be at the destination in a rush. Sadly tearing up the tarmac won’t get you there much quicker than keeping to the speed limits. Have a look at your vehicle’s handbook, it should tell you the most economical driving speed. This is usually around 50 - 60mph.
Lose weight
The less you carry in your van the less strain there is on your engine. So the trick is, only transport what you need. Dump those old copies of auto-trader, newspapers, pens, pads, maybe even go on a diet if you’re carrying a bit of extra timber. As a famous supermarket says, “Every little helps”.
Gadgets cost money
Not only to buy but if you plug them in to your 12v adaptor then they’re also having an effect on your fuel consumption. Charge up your SatNav, phone, PDA, etc the night before using the mains electricity.
Monitor your Miles Per Gallon
On every fill up - zero your odometer. You can then gauge how well you’re doing on your fuel economy.
Keeping cool
Try to use air conditioning sparingly it can increase your fuel consumption by around 10%. Also only open the windows when you really need to. Keeping your windows open increases drag and therefore it has a negative impact to your wallet!
Shop around
As stated early, there’s a forecourt fuel war on at the moment so it pays to keep an eye on local fuel prices. Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrissons and Tesco are really trying to get your business.

As you can see it really does “pay to be green”. Improving your van’s efficiency not only helps your wallet but also reduces your impact on the environment too. Some companies are already using this as a marketing tool to differentiate themselves from the market.

EU Cookie Law: Are you compliant?

Tue, 15 May 2012 15:20:42 +0100

The EU’s Privacy and Communications Directive comes into force on 26 May - also know as the “Cookie Law”.

Most (if not all) websites drop a small text file on to your computer to help organise and store browsing information for example: shopping carts, your preferences, Google Analytics…. Cookies in themselves are inert and can’t harm your computer like a virus can. However, they can be used to gather browsing habits, most visited sites, search terms etc to provide more targeted (and possibly useful) advertising to the end user.

Sadly the legislation appears to be rather vague and poses more questions than the Leveson Inquiry. There are a number of ways to inform users that a site uses cookies and how it uses them. From the outright “you can’t use this site unless you agree to accept cookies” approach to the more subtle, “here’s some information about the cookies we use” way:

3 Approaches to Compliance
Latest ICO Guidance
Humorous Interactive Guide to Compliance (keep clicking “cancel”)

Some sites are adopting a let’s wait and see approach - risky but non the less an effective approach for smaller sites with limited budgets.

The issue everyone has with this legislation is that there is no single accepted approach to dealing with it. Government have approached browser manufacturers (Google, Firefox, Microsoft, etc) to provide a cohesive solution but the newswires appear to be quiet on this front.

Get ready for a quagmire of different approaches and get ready for a decrease in traffic as we users come to terms with these cookies that they didn’t really know anything about.

For myself, I hope all the browsers incorporate a unified approach.

Fancy testing some new stuff?

Tue, 01 May 2012 10:30:33 +0100

We’ve been busy developing some new, sexy stuff over the last few weeks at courier club towers and we’re getting close to releasing our updated member’s area. Our developers are pretty excited - so much so we may have to sedate them.

But, before we do, we’d like to get some members on board to help us beta test the platform before it goes fully live. But why would you want to do this?

Help us iron out any final pesky bugs
Help us understand how users would use the service
Make sure our integration with Twitter and Facebook works
You’ll be credited with your testing prowess in our blog.
You’ll get an entry on our “Featured Courier” wall on our homepage.

Simply contact us on info@courierclub.co.uk with a subject line of “Beta Tester”