It is difficult to ignore the lure of low rates in any commercial transactions.  But judging the merit of an offer for any service on the basis of rates only can lead to wrong decisions. For tangible items it is not always difficult to establish a co-relation between the quality of material and the price. But for intangible services, it is very difficult to find out the rationale of price that can highlight the quality of services that one can expect. Unless the price can be linked to the quality of service it can never be understood what impact the price has on the quality.

Linking Rates with Quality

Judging the correctness of price of a courier quote is almost impossible if it is considered in isolation. The number does not give any indication of the quality of service that the company would be delivering. But it is essential to establish a link between the quoted rates and the quality of service in order to take a logical decision regarding the selection of the company. If this can be done, and there are ways of doing it, then you are sure about the quality of service that you can get at the price that has been quoted. This is a sure way of avoiding the lure of low rates that can appear to be cheap upfront but is really not so in the long run.

Consider the Deliverables

To establish a link between the rates and the quality of service, pay careful attention to the deliverables of the courier company and evaluate whether it is possible for the company to meet these at the offered rates.

• Reliability – The most important quality parameter for a courier company is how reliable it is. Since you will be entrusting the company to deliver items and documents that are valuable to you, although its intrinsic value may not be significantly high to others, you would like it to be delivered with utmost reliability. There should not be any instances of mix up that can result in wrong delivery. Wrong deliveries can be very painful for recipients as they neither receive the ordered item nor able to claim for compensation, as the onus of insurance claim is on the sender. Obtain referrals to evaluate the reliability of the courier company and judge the rate accordingly.
• Safe delivery – There are instances when parcels and other consignments are received in damaged condition from courier companies. The damage happens in transit, may be due to inept and irresponsible handling that resulted from skewed logistics adopted by the courier company to render services at low cost. You pay a heavy price in trying to save courier cost.
• Timely delivery – In order to offer services at low rates, courier companies might take recourse to extended delivery chains that can delay deliveries and defeat the purpose of using courier service, which are meant for speedy deliveries.

Comparing courier quotes with focus on numbers only can therefore be quite misleading and prove to be costly in the long run.