Getting the service right
Page 22
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I READ with interest RHA manager Mr Brattin's comments regarding my criticisms of poor service in the haulage industry (CM September 24).
I would agree that cut-throat competition can result in bad service. However I think the unsatisfactory haulier was cutting his own throat as well as his rates. Perhaps he would have found sufficient customers willing to pay a decent rate if he had offered excellent service. Catering to customers demanding uneconomic rates is a mistake.
I would also mention that the large haulage work contractor who provided excellent service also offered the most competitive quote. It seems efficiency pays dividends.
On that occasion I had three months' continuous work to offer for the largest vehicles available. I noted over 400 haulage contractors in Glasgow Yellow Pages and narrowed this down to about a dozen who could provide the type of vehicles required within my vicinity. On contacting them, only two followed up my enquiry with a personal visit and it was difficult to choose between them on service and price. Of the others, little interest was shown and on contacting one of them twice on the same day, I was asked why I kept ringing them up and this at a time when vehicles were lying idle all over the country.
, While these facts are difficult to believe, they are true. Not only in the haulage industry but in lots of others it would appear people are unaware of the truth of the cliche "The early bird catches the worm", A. G. McHARG Glasgow