City Link Reaps Benefits of Better Capital Investment
Investments made at City Link since its acquisition by Better Capital last year have begun to pay dividends with the premium express delivery company enjoying one of its most successful peak periods ever and at the same time receiving praise from a raft of delighted customers. The achievement follows substantial investment last year in the business, which included 86 new double-deck trailers and the start of a process to modernise the company’s IT infrastructure. This investment coupled with advance planning for the peak period and working closely with customers on forecasting has enabled City Link to deliver a strong performance over the period – not just for its big retail customers who rely heavily on sales at Christmas, but also for its core B2B customers who need the same great service every week of the year.
City Link delivered twice as many parcels in the two peak weeks before Christmas day as they do in a normal week without any drop in the overall quality of service delivered. This has been reflected in the level of positive customer feedback and many companies, such as Mothercare, were impressed with the quality of service over Christmas.
“Walter Blackwood, from Mothercare, commented: “This is our second Christmas with City Link as our parcel carrier and they have really stepped up to the mark and delivered a great peak performance for our customers. The sheer volume of parcels we send over Christmas means these periods are never perfect but we are really happy with the performance we’ve seen from City Link this year across the UK Next Day parcels, home delivery Packets and Two Man services we use them for.”
This sentiment was echoed by Steve McNealy from art publisher King and McGaw: “Please accept my thanks for the continuous daily contact on the smooth arrangements for collections —to even text at 2.00am in the morning on the day your wife is giving birth to ensure that everything will still run to plan is beyond anything any company would ever be able to offer or expect. You have ensured that our company met our own customers’ deadlines which, without our close working relationship, would not have been achieved.”
And Matthew Jackson, Head of Customer Services at materials company Metamark commented on how they have experienced the best peak ever with City Link. “Overall the service has been so much better than previous years and I have been dealing with City Link for the past 12 years.
“This year we have hardly experienced any issues at all, and I can only commend the provisions put in place to prevent this. Thanks for your help and assistance this year, and we look forward to working with you in 2014.”
City Link Operations Director Adele Henderson, said: “The smooth running of deliveries and collections over Christmas was due to meticulous advance planning plus liaising with customers about their forecast volumes during the busy months of November and December. Additionally, the ongoing investment in City Link’s infrastructure and equipment has strengthened our business and enabled us to improve efficiency, essential during the critical peak period. This investment has also allowed us to launch new services and improve our overall customer experience and we plan to continue investing through 2014.”
City Link’s mammoth preparation for the busy Christmas and New Year period involved taking on over 300 additional fleet collection and delivery vehicles, 130 more trailers, 32 additional forklift trucks and 1000 additional hand held scanners.
And the company recruited extra staff to make sure that Christmas deliveries went without a hitch: 200 extra warehouse staff, 65 extra operations staff and 450 additional drivers.
“City Link had one of its most successful peak periods in 2013 and we are looking forward to an even busier and successful one in 2014.” added Adele Henderson.
Better Capital acquired City Link in April last year. It committed £40 million to fund working capital and restructuring requirements.
