Company Profile
Passionate About Customer Service
When our two founding directors left their jobs back in 2012 to form Rapid Shipping, they were faced with a difficult choice. How to differentiate ourselves in a highly competitive marketplace where everyone is offering the same product? No matter which freight forwarder a customer uses, they still all have to use the same airports to get their goods in and out of the country. There are many destinations in the world where only a single shipping line operates vessels – sometimes with a fast reliable service and sometimes in a much less reliable fashion!
Given that we are all at the mercy of the same factors beyond our control (if there’s a fire at JFK Airport and it reduces capacity by 50% there’s nothing we can do about it!) it seemed obvious that there were two possible approaches we could take to set ourselves apart from our competitors.
The first is to slash rates to the lowest possible levels to sweep up lots of business and then mitigate this by doing the bare minimum to service the customers. Use minimal numbers of staff operatingĀ on limited hours to keep overheads down and profit steady. Also known as the “pile ’em high and sell ’em cheap” strategy. Whilst this is no doubt effective, we felt it was somewhat morally questionable, and more to the point an extremely stressful way to run a business. Most people in this industry have worked at such a place at some point and found the stress of constantly dealing with angry customers simply wasn’t a very nice environment to work in.
The alternative strategy therefore seemed to be to do everything in our power to make the customer feel valued. Sure we might not be the cheapest (although we still maintain are rates are extremely competitive) but by trying to make sure we do everything in our power to ensure that you, the customer, feel that no matter what is happening we are right there for you. No matter what crisis may be developing at some far-flung port, you will always be able to find out exactlyĀ what is happening with your shipment. Our friendly experts don’t stop working when our offices close at 17:30. Our main email box is monitored until at least 11pm every weeknight, from 7am weekday mornings, and regularly over the weekend. Because your business works round the clock – so does ours.
Our online tracking system means that even if you need us in the middle of the night or from a different time zone, you will be able to get up-to-date information on the progressĀ of your shipment.
The Expertise You Need
Shipping is a complex business with it’s own unique language and acronyms. Many of our regular customersĀ understand this and simply want to move quickly. They yell “I need to book 9.2 Cbm on the LCL from NGB – FOB Terms” and we immediately know what they mean. When we reply we will send a similar stream of unintelligible letters and numbers back at them becauseĀ they want the answer short, sweet and now.
But everyone has to start somewhere and everyone is a novice the first time. We take pride on being able to take the time to really understand what it is new shippers want, what they do and don’t understand, and what importantĀ information or tricks they might be missing. We will work to explain all of the possible options in plain English and hold your hand all the way from start to finish. We will provide assistance with making sure you understand your rights and responsibilities, handlingĀ customsĀ clearance, taxes & duties etc. For those shipping personal and household effects we supply free bubble wrap, boxes and tape and can provide a full packagingĀ service so you can be assured yourĀ goods are in a safe condition for transit.
Committed To ContinuousĀ Improvement
As part of our ongoing mission to put the customer first, we are constantly planning new technology to simplify the shipping process. We have recently completed work on an automatedĀ quoteĀ system which can be found at the top of every page on thisĀ website. Many destinations offer instant prices and booking whilst others will receive quotations within an hour of submitting a request.
Following the introduction of our online tracking service we have now committed to a major investment to develop an online booking & payment gateway. This will allow customersĀ to book shipments online for a faster service, and make payments usingĀ all major credit & debit cards on our website. Our IT team are working hard to implement this by Q2 2019 so stay tuned for updates! Future plans include the online publishing of contract rates for repeat customers, andĀ the ability to make card payments directly to our drivers at the time of collection.
