That line alone probably has you humming a familiar tune and reminiscing over a popular brand advert, featuring some rather festive HGVs. The truth is, Christmas and the holidays for many businesses is a logistics nightmare. This time of year brings traffic, poor weather and severe disruption. So, how does the Smart Directions team continue to help our customers over the festive season?
We understand the challenges facing our clients during the holidays
It’s our business to understand what challenges are facing our clients. Any solution we then provide needs to be relevant, and we must be able to deploy it successfully. So typically, the obstacles are very similar:
- Increasing number of orders
- Higher risk of errors
- Shortage of stock
- Staffing issues
- More competition
During our initial consultation, we might learn that they have a particularly difficult trade route, constraints on their fulfilment or even a product that requires specialist handling. Once we have a clear idea of your individual challenges, we can work to provide a bespoke solution, prepare contingencies and work with other supply chain partners who can support your requirements and keep things running.
We don’t leave things to chance
We might not be able to control the weather, and we definitely have no power over the M25, but we do keep our eyes and ears open to any delays, disruptions and disasters. We also make it much easier for you to track your goods in transit by providing 24/7 updates, regardless of time zone or destination.
We’re mindful of cost, so like to keep things fair
Why pay more than you have to? We know that fuel prices and surcharges can really cut into margins and put a strain on budgets, so we do our best to pass on significant discounts to help keep the cost of national and international shipping as low as possible.
We give you plenty of notice of the holidays
Ok, you might think that this is an odd one given that we are ridiculously close to, but we actually get our customers prepared well in advance of December, as standard. We make sure that we are aware of all the half terms, international holidays and strike action, so that our customers never fall short of their commitment to theirs.
As partnerships go, we like to think that we have a really strong role to play in the success of our customers and their businesses over such a crucial time of year. So, if you were looking for a reliable, knowledgeable and well respected logistics partner to help you over the festive season and beyond, why not get in touch with our friendly customer service support team? You can contact us by filling in an online form, get a fast quotation using our booking system, or speak to the team on the phone by calling 01442 507 240. We’re Smart Directions, for businesses who are going places!