Frank Brown Delivers Your Promises » On the road

A New Partnership

Frank — Wed, 11 May 2011 15:13:42 +0000

As many of you know we entered into a working partnership with Wallington Cars & Couriers back in March. So far this has been an extremely successful move. We are now able to offer much better rates to many destinations, particularly London Postcodes. We are also able to offer a much wider variety of vehicle, often at very short notice, and it seems that this is becoming rapidly very popular with our clients. We are now being asked to quote for lorries as well as large vans such as Mercedes Sprinters and Luton Tail-Lifts.

Another change is the much better rate for Overnight deliveries – prices starting from just £7.95 + VAT for next working day delivery in most of the UK. Have a look at our Overnight pricelist on the website for more details.

We can also tap into the 24 hour service which Wallington Cars & Couriers offer. If you regularly need vehicles during the night let us know and we can provide you with a 24 hour telephone number to call out of hours.

If you have any queries about anything please give us a ring – we hope that you will find this new partnership as exciting and rewarding as we do.

London Congestion Charge

Frank — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 11:15:35 +0000

From Tuesday 4^th January 2011 the London Congestion Charge Zone is being made smaller but the charge for the remainder is increasing. The postcodes that will no longer have the congestion charge applied to them are London W2, W8, W10, W11, SW3 and SW7. All the other postcodes that are in the congestion zone will be charged at £9 instead of the previous £8. If you have any queries about this then please do not hesitate to contact us.

What van do you need?

Frank — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 11:34:12 +0000

If you’re unsure what vehicle you need then why not ask our advice? As long as you have a rough idea of the dimensions and weight we can sort out what size of vehicle you need. For instance one of our customers had a couple of large crates to transport which would have been very difficult to lift – so we sorted out a Luton Transit with a tail lift and a pallet truck on board. That way we saved everybody from needing a chiropractor! We have a variety of different sized vehicles to call upon at quite short notice – when we haven’t got the right sized van on our own fleet.

A good day’s work

Frank — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:11:44 +0000

Something we have done at this time of year is to deliver prospectuses for local colleges and this has made me realise that we can offer a similar service to other clients. Do you have several deliveries going out at the same time? Maybe towards Christmas (sorry I know I shouldn’t use that word when we’re still only in September!) you might want to drop calendars or gifts to your regular clients. If the deliveries are all quite close to each other then we might be able to compete very favourably with the Royal Mail or whatever other method you might usually use. We can charge you a daily rate – with prices starting at just £160 + VAT based on an eight hour day and delivery points being within a 15 mile radius of your location (London postcodes excluded). Our drivers are all very experienced and have a good knowledge of the local area so they are able to get a good many deliveries done in a day. Why not give us a call and ask the question? You might be pleasantly surprised at how little it could cost.

Book in advance

Frank — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 08:05:35 +0000

Did you know there are great advantages to booking your courier early? An example of this happened just last week. One of our clients needed to get some goods over to Ireland urgently. Because the goods had to be over there for the next working day we were unable to get the best deals from our international shippers and as a result the cost was too great for our clients. If we had been given two or three days then we could have got a much better price, possibly as much as 50% cheaper. Another example is actually the reverse of this. Another of our clients needed to get some goods back from Manchester and told us at the beginning of the week in case we had another trip going that way. As it happened we had a trip to Redditch a couple of days later (which took us well on the way) and we were able to offer our clients a much reduced price for the Manchester journey.

We appreciate that one of the main reasons why people use a courier is because their goods are urgent. However there are many occasions where events are known about well in advance and transport can be organised beforehand and a great deal of money saved! So the moral of the story is – if you know you’re going to need a courier let us know as soon as possible and we can start looking at the various options in order to save you money. And don’t forget we still offer our Economy Document Service to Central London from just £30 + VAT with no congestion charge!

Back to Uni

Frank — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 13:55:52 +0000

Are you or your youngsters busy preparing to go back to university? Are you wondering how to get all the stuff in the car or on the train? What about using an overnight courier to send your belongings? As long as everything is securely packaged and well labelled then this can be quite a cheap option. With prices starting at just £12 + VAT for up to 20kgs for next day delivery we feel this is a very viable alternative. There needs to be someone around all day to sign for the delivery but otherwise there are no strings attached (except of course for the ones keeping everything tied securely!). In fact for just £3 more (+VAT) the delivery can be made before midday so freeing up the afternoon to locate the local pubs and clubs (an essential part of university life so I’m led to believe!)

Alternatively perhaps there are a few of you locally going to universities all in the same general direction. What about clubbing together and paying for a van + driver to take all the goods up there directly. This might cost less than you think. Give us a call and we’ll be glad to help.

Journeys further afield

Frank — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 10:29:33 +0000

We’ve just managed to link in with a nationwide same day service at very competitive rates. Prices are charged on an A to B mileage basis. What does this mean for you? It means that if you have goods further afield in the UK which you urgently need moving then we can get it done much faster. For instance if you have goods in Leeds that you need to get back to Redhill then we can usually get them collected within an hour and brought directly back to you. The time saved would be about 4 hours as the driver wouldn’t be leaving from here to go to Leeds with an empty van. Another instance where you would benefit would be if you have goods which need moving urgently for example from Manchester to Birmingham. Again we could usually get them collected within an hour and taken straight to Birmingham. Not only would this save you time but it would also save you money. Until now we’d have driven from here to Manchester, collected the goods, and then taken them to Birmingham. We’d have had to charge from here to Manchester whereas this would now be charged on an A to B basis. Give us a call for more information on this new added service.

It’s a wrap

Frank — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 08:05:35 +0000

One of the things our clients regularly ask us about it packaging. It’s vital that goods are really well wrapped if they are going to travel round the world changing hands many times en route. The secret is not to cut corners – things can never be overwrapped. Make sure you have a sturdy box, if possible, with bubble wrap around fragile items. Make sure the box is securely taped shut with heavy duty tape, marked ‘Fragile’ if necessary and, most importantly of all, clearly addressed. For larger items which won’t fit in a box make sure there is plenty of heavy duty wrapping material all around – preferably cardboard but bubble wrap if that’s all you’ve got available. Use plenty of tape to hold everything in place and particularly ensure that any protruding edges are well protected. We are always happy to advise if you’re unsure and we’ve usually got some tape on board our vehicles for emergencies.

Around The World

Frank — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 10:05:42 +0000

Something we’ve been doing more of over the last few months is sending goods around the globe. We’ve sent goods to a real variety of destinations such as Qatar, Dubai, USA, Canada, Singapore, Malta, Costa Rica and of course nearer destinations in mainland Europe. We use a variety of different agents all of whom are experts in export and import, and because we send so many shipments each month we get better rates which we can pass on to our clients. Why not give us a call and see what rate we can get for you to send your items abroad. Also I know it’s only August but what about your Christmas presents that need to go overseas? If you send them early enough then we can send them via Road & Sea which is even cheaper in most cases.

The Road To Hell

Frank — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:51:49 +0000

The beauty of the British transport system is its unpredictability. Just when you’re already on a tight deadline the M25 does its worst. Last Friday one of our clients asked us to deliver some goods to Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. Our driver collected about 3.30pm and had to be there by 6pm when the chap was leaving. Not normally a problem! Anyway the M25 was an absolute nightmare and Keith, our driver, arrived at 6.03pm. Of course the chap had long since left and the place was all locked up. Keith wandered around trying to find someone, phoned me, I phoned our client etc etc. Anyway fortunately the cleaner turned up and very kindly agreed to sign for the boxes and put them in reception for the weekend. Our lucky day!

We will of course always try our best to deliver at the first attempt but unfortunately traffic problems do of course occur from time to time but we will always keep clients informed.