OUR BEST BUY
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• Carryfast's faulty pager unfortunately ruled out the company from the CM test. Network Overnight ruled itself out hut was suitably apologetic.
Securicor did everything right except deliver the parcel on time. A Securicor spokesman subsequently told CM that the parcel had been mis-sorted at Loughborough during night trunking; it had travelled on a non-urgent trunk instead of the next-day priority trunk.
City Link completed the test without fault but we have a few qualms about the nunber of times our parcel was handled along the route. City Link was also our most expensive carrier.
Parceline performed well, as it has done in the previous two years of our test. It had a good telephone technique and was cheap and fast. Our only criticisms are the lack of a customer's consignment note and the refusal to agree to our (albeit unusual) request to pay the carriage charges in cash to the driver.
Multifreight did not really carry out the collection of our parcel — it was a salesman from sister company United Carriers who did that — but the Multifreight system took over and completed the job satisfactorily at a very competitive price. Full marks to United Carriers/Multifreight for their obvious desire to really serve the customer, even if we were not an account holder.
Our criticism of the way they handled our enquiry already put Lex Wilkinson and TNT out of the running for our final choice. Neither of these large carriers responded in a particularly positive way to potential new business. As a new consignor we found it irritating to arrange the collection: the other carriers were slicker in this regard. Lex Wilkinson and TNT Overnite were also expensive for us — presumably their regular customers receive better treatment and more competitive rates.
That leaves Interlink and Datapost as our joint "Best Buys". Both were businesslike on the telephone (particularly Datapost) and were prompt to respond and quick to deliver.
Both carriers were also quite prepared to accept cash and supplied the necessary paperwork as evidence of accepting the parcels. The Datapost price is not quite as competitive as Interlink's but it does include a guaranteed morning delivery as standard.
Interlink's bathroom scales did not impress us, particularly as they doubled the weight for our light parcel. That apart, Interlink delivered the goods.
The success of Interlink and Datapost is, interestingly, a repeat of last year's result.
We do not pretend that our findings are necessarily typical of every customer and every consignment. We sympathise with Securicor and Carryfast; the gremlins were hard at work in their depots on the day we rang.