Industry News
September 2009
KLEENEZE and PARCELFORCE achieve the impossible!
WHEN delivery company Amtrak unexpectedly went into administration on the Friday night of the August Bank Holiday in 2008, the Kleeneze management team worked ceaselessly to ensure minimum disruption to their 10,500-strong distributor network. By the Saturday morning of the Bank Holiday the team had negotiated a new multi-million pound contract with Parcelforce Worldwide, to become its new UK carrier and they were back in business!
“It was an entirely unexpected situation and obviously caused some disruption to our normal service, but the quick thinking and hard work of both parties meant the new contract was up and running almost immediately after the Amtrak announcement ensuring limited disruption to the business”, said Jamie Stewart, Managing Director, Kleeneze.
Under normal circumstances it would take Parcelforce anything from six to eight weeks to set-up a new customer, while the customer would require a similar amount of time to modify their own internal systems for a new carrier.
A respected household name, Kleeneze specialises in supplying a diverse range of home, garden, health, beauty and gift products to customers through its home shopping catalogue, which is sent out via a network of independent Distributors. Therefore, any interruption to the delivery of goods would have had a massive impact on its Distributors and customers alike. Parcelforce Worldwide is a significant division of the Royal Mail Group Ltd and is one of the top five express parcel carriers in the whole of the UK. Now a global brand, Parcelforce has been in operation for over 14 years, delivering to 240 countries throughout the world.
Dick Stead, Sales and Marketing Director, Parcelforce, said, “Not many companies can react and get their parcels despatched this quickly when their carrier goes into administration – especially over a Bank Holiday weekend. Due to the sheer size of Kleeneze, and the support it receives from its parent company Findel Plc, this new partnership was turned around in a remarkably fast time. Both Kleeneze and ourselves worked extremely hard to ensure that the Distributors and customers did not feel any effects of this change, and we are extremely happy to be working with a like-minded company who is willing to go that extra mile for its customers.”
Jamie Stewart offered this valuable advice to direct selling companies, “Given the uncertain times we live in, senior management need to consider back-up and contingency plans for parcel distribution. Ask yourself what would happen in the event of your parcel carrier going into administration? I’d urge everyone to ensure they have at least had a conversation with someone like Parcelforce, so they have price comparisons and service level quotations to hand, and are prepared for such a disaster happening. Also make sure you are able to have ‘out of hours’ contact with key people as problems don’t always happen during normal working hours!”
Jamie concluded by saying, “Parcelforce now deliver all our UK parcel traffic as well as our Dutch and German parcels through their sister company GLS. This makes life much easier for us as we only have one company to deal with at point of despatch. We at Kleeneze now have peace of mind, as well as a fantastic service, with the added bonus of knowing that as Parcelforce are Government backed they won’t go into administration!”
www.kleeneze.co.uk
www.parcelforce.co.uk
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