Are you a Warehouse Manager with a large package? (TNT)

Member Name: steerpyke

Product:	TNT
Date:	08/12/05 (307 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: generally fast, reliable and competetive

Disadvantages: some problems with some overseas areas.

TNT's roots are in Australia. In 1946, Ken Thomas started his own company - Thomas Nationwide Transport - with a fleet consisting of a single truck. In less than half a century, his company grew into a global enterprise, even operating its own fleet of aircraft. Much of the growth came from take-overs and interests acquired in other companies. Today TNT is a global courier services and part of a Dutch based group that employs 162,000 people in 63 countries but can actually serve over 200 countries through connections to local services.

I have been using TNT on a daily basis for a number of months now as part of my job to send packages large and small throughout the UK, Europe and across the world. My job revolves around supplying Heavy Plant spare parts to building firms, quarrymen and construction company’s for vehicles such as excavators, diggers and other large scale machines. As these parts may range from a wiper blade to a half-ton motor and the destination could be 10 miles down the road or 10,000 miles away, this really is a job that tests the courier service that we trust our shipments to and for the most part, this is TNT.

Because we have packages going out every day, we have a formal agreement with the company. I can’t comment on how good they would be for an ad hoc, irregular, now and then service as our business has a pick up from them the same time every day, five days a week. This is what this review is based on and details may differ for other situations. This reviews information is also based on our consignments going through the Bristol depot and again I can’t vouch for every depot, only the one I’m familiar with. But I would like to think that in such a large organisation, the set up of their depots and systems is all very standardised and its safe to say that my experiences are fairly representative of the whole organisation, but I may be wrong.

Due to our arrangement with TNT, we have our own software, which generates labels providing the necessary information in barcode and written form to ensure that the package gets to its destination. Quotations for the costs involved are available via their help line or can be generated via a handy reckoning system found on their website. Established business relationships can lead to handy discounts depending upon the volume of work that you send their way and the prices themselves are both easy to follow and competitive. Prices are based on weight and/or volume depending on the destination and nature of the package.

They have a range of services available for all requirements in the UK, from the standard next day delivery to “timed” deliveries as the urgency of delivery requires. Overseas deliveries fall into the faster “global express” service to the slower, and therefore cheaper “economy” service when the need for speed is not a priority. But the test of any courier service is how they perform when something goes wrong, and this is one area where TNT let their up until now, splendid service slip. The help line is friendly and seemingly efficient to begin with but after a couple of calls you may find that frustration sets in as your enquiry doesn’t seem to be progressing very fast. This is particularly evident when overseas packages are involved. The problem seems to be that TNT rely on local courier services in the countries and areas where they don’t have a depot and communication with these services tends to be a bit hit and miss to say the least. One example is a shipment sent on a priority service from the UK to Jamaica recently that took two weeks to get to its destination, most of that time it spent sat in a warehouse in Kingston. Communication between my local depot and the overseas part of the operation were almost non-existent. Frustration sets in when you are being chased for answers by your clients and the people you entrusted the parcel to can’t even give you some fundamental answers to the whys and wherefores. This I must say though is the exception, most packages, and that includes overseas packages, seem to arrive on time without a hitch. Only the countries where local agents represent TNT do there seem to be major problems and in my experience the Caribbean seems to be particularly problematic. Nothing personal, that’s just the way it is.

Overseas trouble spots aside, the organisation seems very professional and whether I have to send a headlamp bulb to Kent or a engine to Kenya they seem to be able to do the job. There are some quicker local services available, which I use for specific destinations but no one company seems to cover the range that they do. With out TNT I would probably have to deal with a dozen smaller firms to get all of the jobs done, so it’s nice to have everything under one umbrella. Their first point of contact is very professional and at the same time friendly, and remain composed even when you are pulling your hair out down the telephone, which I must qualify by saying is extremely rare.

I would therefore have to recommend TNT to any business large or small who rely on getting consignments moved around the world quickly. They may not be perfect but they do get the job done to your requirements 99.9% of the time. Can you say the same about your job?

Summary: not perfect but generally get the job done