Customer Service is Key to Success of Local Business
Don’t you just love those small business success stories? They make the average person believe that just maybe they too can follow their dream and be successful. While it can be a long road to get to that success, finding the right combination of priorities is important. If you can make yourself an expert at what you want to do, if you can go at it in earnest and sincerity, and if you’re willing to work hard, just maybe you too can do it.
That’s exactly what Raymond and Kathy Arnold did when they started Central Illinois Courier back in 1997. They started with just two vehicles – a family extended van and the purchase of a box truck – working from their home making local deliveries at all hours. Ray Arnold had spent quite a few years working in the trucking industry and strongly felt that customer service was missing from such delivery services.
They’ve come a long, long ways since their bare bones beginnings. What specifically do they do? They pick up and deliver anything from documents to light freight on scheduled routes throughout central Illinois. They’ve expanded their business coverage from border to border across the 74 corridor of Central Illinois to include all U.S. states. They deliver freight up to 8,000 pounds throughout the U.S., delivering for Walgreens, Wal-Mart, doctors, lawyers, and other businesses. They also deliver parts for John Deer, Ford, Toyota, and Kia.
The couple believes that the secret to their success is customer service. Their customers are loyal and tell other businesses about their services. Word of mouth is their usual mode of advertising. “Anybody can undercut by a dollar or two. But, if you give them service above and beyond what anyone else is doing, then that’s going to keep them as a customer for you.” says co-owner Kathy Arnold.
Theirs is an ever-changing and evolving business and they understand that if they don’t change their practices to match those changes, they’ll lose out. Recognizing that fast response times are vital, they’re promoting the expediting segment of their business. Most businesses no long keep a huge inventory on hand in warehouses because it’s too expensive. So, the Arnolds are promoting their ability to move items locally very quickly.
When asked what their toughest challenges are, Kathy was quick to respond: fuel and labor. “Fuel costs are terrifying,” says Arnold. “We spend in a week what just a very short time ago we did in a whole month. You can only pass on so much of that to your customers. You just cannot change your charges weekly based on current fuel costs.” Contracts, which often run for up to three years, are staples of any delivery business. However, you’re locked into those prices for the duration of the contract. And, often times government-issued contracts just get an automatic extension. Some of Arnold’s extensions are now into their third extension. “You have no recourse, it’s just something they can do” explains Arnold.
Labor is also an issue for their business. It’s hard to find people that care about the jobs they’re doing. “A lot of our jobs are not full-time. Therefore the younger workers, who need to have health benefits, tend to not want to work for us. We have more retirees. However, some of our jobs are very physically demanding. We need to have workers that are healthy enough to work long-term. We tell potential workers that the jobs are physically demanding; that they need to be able to lift up to fifty pounds and that there is constant loading and unloading. We have to pay for their DOT physicals plus a basic drug screen. So, we’ve got to pay out these expenses before we can even put someone in the vehicle. However, often times after we’ve incurred the expense of getting a new driver, they quit after only a few days because it’s too hard. So, we don’t even begin to recoup our expenses.”
When asked about what their niche might be, Arnold explains, “We’re in between. We’re smaller in the trucking industry in that we do not run semis. We can therefore get into a lot of areas where semis can not do easily. For instance, we do a lot of deliveries for Walgreens and similar places where it’s hard for the semis to get to their back doors. They can deliver a full semi load to us and then we sort it and break it down to go out to individual stores and then send it on out in our box trucks. We can make deliveries in a more timely fashion than a semi truck could because a box truck can easily pull right up to the door and off load the order and get back onto the road quickly. It’s more cost effective for them. We are finding more and more of our business is going in that direction. This is an industry in flux. In the past we did a lot of regular scheduling where we went to the same place every day. Now, there’s a lot more of on-demand deliveries.” explains Arnold.
To illustrate, she says, “We also do a lot of after-hours type of deliveries for companies such as Toyota, Kia and John Deer delivering parts. Typically, a semi picks up the parts needed for the next day and deliveries it to Bloomington. We send over a line haul truck or a big box truck to pick up that load and bring it back here where we sort it to be delivered out to all the different locations by 8:00 a.m. so that they will have the product to work with the next day. So, we bring it in during the middle of the night. Therefore, security is another big part of our business.”
When asked for what advice they could offer to new small businesses, Kathy laughingly says, “Don’t listen to the experts. According to them, we did everything wrong and we shouldn’t be in business.” Of course, she points out that her husband’s knowledge of the transportation business was essential. “He wasn’t happy that customer service often took a back seat and it frustrated him.”
When asked what she would like the readers of the Community Word to remember about Central Illinois Courier is that it is a company that sincerely cares.
