Are you wondering how you can get courier contracts? If YES, here are 10 best strategies to use to get courier contracts. Being in business means that you should endeavor to employ all the marketing and sales strategies within your disposal to win contracts both from corporate and individual clients.
The truth is that if you don’t have regular courier contracts, you are sure going to struggle to grow the business and if you are not proactive, the business may pack up sooner than you expect. The fact that the global courier and delivery services industry plays a very important role in the economy of the world shows that there is a large market for the courier business.
Companies that operate in the courier and delivery services industry provide air, land, sea, or combined express courier delivery services of parcels, documents, and packages for individual and corporate clients. If you run a courier and delivery business, you should know that your ability to deliver promptly will not be enough to keep you in the business, you must market your services, or else you won’t get any reasonable contracts.
10 Steps to Getting Courier Contracts
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Choose a Good Location for Your Courier Company
The first and perhaps one of the most important things to put in place as a courier company is to ensure that you position your business in the right location. It cannot be over emphasized that the success of any business lies in the location you choose to locate the business.
You should ensure that you locate your business close to places like seaports, airports, metropolises, and business hubs et al. No doubt courier and delivery companies that are located along busy routes are expected to stay busy and experience increase in revenue.
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Make Use of Reliable Delivery Vans and Trucks
It is one thing to choose a good location for your courier company but a different kettle of fish for you to possess the capacity to deliver on the job. If you want to continue to secure contracts, then you should ensure that you have only reliable delivery vans and trucks under your fleet.
What is the point of boasting that you offer 24 hours delivery services all across the United States of America when your delivery vans and trucks are always breaking down on the highway or spending more time than required in the mechanic garage?
Running a courier a business with reliable delivery vans and trucks will give you an edge over your competitors. In order to achieve this, you may have to go for brand new delivery vans and trucks; although it might be expensive to acquire brand new delivery vans and trucks, but you can be rest assured that in the long run, it will be more advantageous than purchasing cheap and used delivery vans.
You will be able to cut down on maintenance and even fueling costs, your delivery vans and trucks will always be available and professional delivery courier men and women will always choose to work in your company.
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Make Your Courier Business Superior to that of Your Competitors
Come to think of it, people will always patronize a business that appears to be superior to others. So in order to keep getting courier contracts, you should project your company to be superior to that of your competitors not only in appearance but in also in your service delivery.
So also trust, honesty, excellent relationship management, strong management, strong delivery fleet operations, direct access to all Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports, your transportation network as it relates to serving some of the largest population centers in the U.S., your size advantage, cost advantage, supply chain, customer loyalty and strong reputation amongst domestic industry players will count a lot for you in this regard.
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Build Good Business Network
Networking is perhaps one of the most effective and creative marketing ideas needed to begin to build your client base and you have to put plans in place to leverage on all your networks if you truly want to do well in the courier and delivery business. In view of that, you should look out for gatherings where you can network with companies that are into regular delivery of documents and parcels, perhaps educational institutions and recruitment agencies et al.
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Get Your Dispatchers, Drivers and Other Employees Involved in Marketing Your Services
As a courier company, part of what you need to do if you want to get regular courier contracts is to ensure that all your employees (not only marketing and sales executives) are directly or indirectly involved in the marketing of your services.
Just ensure that you create provision for your employees to earn a commission when they bring in business (contracts) for the organization. You can as well create a business model that will enable freelancers to work with your organization as it relates to bringing in courier and delivery contracts; whenever they refer clients to your organization, they will earn a percentage of the deal.
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Build a Courier Business That Will Serve Both Big and Small Clients
Another idea that will help you get courier contracts is to ensure that you design your business in such a way that you can comfortably work with both individuals who may want to deliver parcels within the city and also big organizations who are involved in the massive deployment of goods from one part of the U.S. to another and even overseas.
The truth is that some courier companies miss out on contracts because they are either too big to attend to smaller clients or too small to execute larger contracts.
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Form Strategic Marketing Alliance with Other Players in Key Industries
As a courier company owner, if you want to continue to get courier contracts from both corporate and individual clients, then you should look towards forming strategic marketing alliances with key players in other industries.
Good enough, there are opportunities for courier companies to form strategic marketing alliances with other players in the industry due to the fact that some courier and delivery companies may lack the capacity to handle certain contracts. Your company can form strategic marketing alliance with the government of your country of a major conglomerate that engages in massive deployments of parcels on a regular basis et al.
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Create Brand Identity for Your Courier Company
You will quite agree that customers go for products or service providers that are always in front of them; in the business world, it is called promotion and branding. So, if you want to continue to get courier and delivery contracts from both corporate and individual clients all across the United States, then you should be ready to create a brand identity for your company.
You should make plans to work with branding consultants to help you map out publicity and advertising strategies that will help you walk your way into the heart of your target market. First and foremost, if your brand is visible and well communicated you will be able to work with a different class of clients in your business location. Just ensure that all your publicity materials and jingles are done by some of the best hands in the industry.
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Work on Your Retention Strategies
A company that is good with marketing and winning contracts but not good with generating repeat sales from their existing customers will always struggle to maximize profits in the business. You cannot keep welcoming customers from your front door and watch them leave via your back door and expect to generate enough revenue for your business.
Part of the retention strategies you need to adopt is to ensure that you leverage on price to win over customers; your prices should be affordable and negotiable. The fact that your business door is open to both individuals and corporations means that you should have a different price range for different categories of clients.
In order to improve on your customer experience so that you can create a good impression and generate repeated business deals from them, you should make provisions to give out discounts to your customers from time to time whenever they patronize your services, make available flexible payment options for your clients, make use of effective customer relationship management (CRM) software to effectively manage your clientele base and ensure that you carry your clients along when making decisions that directly affect them.
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Visit Corporate Organizations to Source for Courier Contracts
If you are interested in getting a courier contract, your best option is to take your proposals and marketing materials straight to corporate organizations where you will find businesses who will need your services. It is simple and straightforward, if you want to fish, you go to the river, so if you want to get courier and delivery services contracts you go to places where you can find organizations and individuals who are always sending parcels from one place to another.