Having an efficient courier service can mean a significant saving of both money and resources for an organisation, as well as ensuring effective, high-quality communication. And that can only be achieved using a technology platform developed to enable operatives to manage courier services rapidly, securely and economically at the same time as the organisation has access to information that is important to the measurement and optimisation of the service.
Courier services in organisations
The reality is that although we are in the age of information and big data, when we talk to organisations about their courier services, we hear that they do not see corporate courier services as vital to their businesses. And that means that they do not allocate sufficient resources to have a quality service. Purchasing and General Services Departments tend to select the cheapest possible provider at contract renewal time.
The challenge of the absence of information
That reality is why in many companies, corporate courier services are still a little outdated, rather than taking advantage of technological innovation. The standard way of proceeding is that when someone wants to send a package, they have make a request for a courier to the mailroom or directly to the courier services department by email or telephone.
In businesses that use this ‘user manual’, individuals have no information to help them select the best delivery method for their particular needs, which makes it likely that their delivery will be made in a way that is more urgent or expensive than they actually need.
As we just mentioned, a lack of information is the main obstacle that we encounter when we propose a courier services structure to a client. People often say: “I have one provider for international deliveries, another for Spain and another for local deliveries, but don’t ask me how much we use each of them, because I just don’t know.”
That lack of knowledge means there is no visibility of the cost of the service, and without that granular view the only way they have to reduce the cost of the service is to ‘squeeze’ their providers.
The Mail Company’s technology-based solution
To avoid that scenario of ignorance, The Mail Company provides advanced technology to businesses for the management of courier services. When someone within a business logs on to our GIO Platform they can see and select from different variables for a delivery, such as: collection, delivery, weight, time of request, methods of transport and price.
When users have control of the parameters for a delivery, costs automatically go down. Our experience has shown us that by just implementing the GIO Platform and making it available to users together with simple monitoring of deliveries, we can achieve cost savings of 10-15%.
Empowering users with GIO
And to that we have to add that because GIO gives users the power of choice they can select the best service for their delivery, in terms of urgency and importance. In that way, the costs of the service more closely match the need and (measured over the long-term) decrease.
At the same time, the platform enables users to track the status of their deliveries thanks to end-to-end traceability of each job.
User profiles to optimise costs
One of the most valuable features of our software is that it allows the configuration of different settings to optimise the cost of deliveries in user profiles, a feature that many clients have adopted with great success.
It allows different types of delivery to be assigned to distinct roles within an organisation. The feature can be configured for each client, and it could, for example, be set like this:
- Users who can request all types of deliveries.
- Users who can only select economy services.
- Intermediate users subject to an approval workflow who can request a 10-hour service, and a special service but only with the approval of a line manager.
- Allocate budgets to users or departments.
Flexibility in operational management to adapt to the needs of a business
The GIO Platform also has many operational advantages. The Mail Company acts as a broker and can therefore manage courier services from different providers in the most flexible and coherent way and so can rapidly resolve problems and incidents with no need to change provider.
When a courier service is based on agreements with individual providers, if you have problems with a specific branch or geographic area you have to enter into an agreement with another provider to address the problem. With GIO, such an incident can be resolved rapidly and straightforwardly by re-directing deliveries to another provider of courier services. That provides the flexibility to adapt to the changing needs of a business in real time.
Centralisation of providers and data
That capacity to aggregate providers also provides a single point of contact, a single invoice and a wide range of information. That means that once our technology has been implemented in your business, you have all the information for the whole organisation together in one place and you can access that information immediately and see it broken down by lcoation, by department and by user. That capacity to interrogate the information is key to service optimisation.
Legally valid digital deliveries
Technology allows us to implement digital deliveries that are legally fully valid, from sending mail to executing contracts. A good example might be:
You need to send a contract for signature to someone who is on an island. Using GIO, the job would probably be sent by a more expensive urgent service. And the contract will have to be printed off and put in a courier pouch, with all the risks of delay, loss of the package and other incidents that would then have to be handled.
But if it is done digitally, there is no need to print the contract off and delivery is instantaneous, receipt is confirmed and if the other person replies straight away, the contract execution process is complete. In other words, digital contract signature is both more environmentally sustainable and faster, more secure and cheaper.
Discover courier service efficiency with The Mail Company
Learn how efficient your business’ document logistics actually are with The Mail Company. Our service managers will help you to assess the efficiency of your existing courier services. Perfect your internal and external communications and improve working across teams and locations.
In the context of today’s digital transformation of business, taking your document logistics to the next level is not optional. The Mail Company is ready to help.
Contact us for an initial review and begin the process of optimising your courier services.
