White Arrow Express

White Arrow Express are a lot faster, they take more care, and are a lot more professional at what they do than any other parcel delivery company that we are all familiar with. What I do know is that If you order by phone, an item from your catalogue, and it is in stock then I can say for sure you will get it the next day. Well you would if you lived anywhere on my wife's round.

My wife, Karen, has been a self employed courier for several years with a number of well known parcel delivery firms, and has been with White Arrow Express for two years. She has a very large sector to cover which averages 60 parcels daily. She gets her parcels delivered every morning at about 9.00am, then she needs to check through them for any missing which have to be reported back to her courier manager. She then loads up the car and has a 12 mile trip to get to her area. This is unusual as most couriers have their own sector where they live, but where we live the couriers working here have been here for years, so Karen had to push for the one she has now.

The amount she is paid is 10p more per parcel than if she had a local round so for a normal parcel that can be delivered anytime over two days it is 40p which is the same for a collection (an unwanted item being returned to the catalogue). Each day there are about three or four which are classed as 'Time Critical' and these have to be delivered the day Karen gets them and are worth 50p each, these are what customers have paid £2.95 to get next day delivery. Only about 50% of all her parcels are from the catalogue companies, which are Great Universal, Kays, Choice and Marshall Ward, the first three of these catalogues being almost identical and all belonging to GUS (Great universal).

Other companies and third party clients using White Arrow Express are World Books, Readers Digest, Readers Union, Innovations, QVC, Blooming Marvellous and many many more. Argos is another which is now owned by GUS (Great Universal). White Arrow Express (WAE) established in 1947, are part of the Great Universal Stores plc and are the largest independent home delivery company in the UK. and have 39 delivery depots (all with computerised parcel tracking) placed all around the UK with three main sorting depots. They are capable of sorting 10,000 parcels per hour or 110 million parcels a year. They have a fleet 2500 vehicles of which 1200 are Transit vans and they have over 4000 couriers delivering and collecting nationwide to about 80% of all UK households.

My wife is an extremely nice, kind and well mannered person, which is why I find it very hard to understand the way some people treat her. They are very rude and aggressive and are certainly a very bad example to our younger generation. I'm talking about only a minority of her clients that find it hard to grasp that she does not know what any one has ordered or what size, colour or even if they have included the free gift. Being confronted by 'fag ash lill', at number 42, interrogating my wife as to whether or not the parcel contained her Bert's size 56" indigo trousers. Then there was an angry woman that had been on night shift that Karen had woken up at eleven in the morning to deliver her the latest editor's pick from readers digest. "I'm on night shift you stupid cow", she said, "you could of just left it at the side of the step and put a card through my door" as she snatched it from my wife's hand.

A lot of the problems that people have with whatever company they are getting there parcels from and delivered through WAE are sometimes directed wrongly at WAE and or the courier. The catalogue person that takes the order have a very bad habit of assuring customers that they will get their order the next day, or they tell them that WAE will deliver before a certain time. The worst case is when they tell their customer, that works till 5.00pm every day, that your local courier will come to pick up your return after 6.00pm, this is so frustrating for Karen. Most of the parcels have our phone number on them and the ideal way of getting a return picked up is by phoning and leaving there address, and if they are not going to be in where the parcel will be left. It will be picked up the next day. Some still phone and just leave their phone number and ask if we can phone back to arrange a pick up but she is not allowed to as she is not paid for phone calls,.

If anyone reading this wants to be their own boss, self employed with flexible hours and has a car and an answering machine then why not consider giving them a ring. No need to worry if there are no vacancies at the present you could still put your name on the waiting list or you could be lucky enough to be contacted by AWE to do some cover work for anybody sick or on holiday. The recruitment line is 0541 515609 and just tell them your post code and they can tell you there and then if they have a vacancy or not, good luck. Despite all the negative things I've mentioned above on the whole AWE are a good firm to work for and will continue to expand in my opinion because of all the extra work being generated by on-line shopping.

If there you need any further information on White Arrow Express then you can contact them on one of the following ways:

Tel : 01204 382323
Fax : 01204 383808
Post :
White Arrow Express,
Thinner Street,
Bolton
BAL TAX
Or fill in the on-line form at: www.white.com/index.him

www.kaysnet.com

www.argos.co.uk

www.choiceshopping.com

www.gus.co.uk