subject: If My Shipment Is Delayed Will The Courier Contact Me? [print this page] There are a number of reasons that a courier company should go out of their way to contact their clients directly. Because a courier company typically deals with so many different clients even within a single van load of goods, it is difficult for them to do this for every little situation. However, when a Chicago courier service experiences a large delay in a shipment, this is the one time that people that ship with courier companies should demand of their couriers that they contact them directly to alert them to the delay in the shipment.
When you're trying to keep to a shipping schedule, you typically schedule everything very close together in order to minimize the gaps between a product's production and its actual distribution to a customer. This means that there typically is not a great deal of wiggle room left if something happens to delay a shipment. That is why it's important that you are notified by the courier company if this does happen, so that you can take any action you might require, even if it's just alerting your client that their shipment is going to be delayed.
Realize that if the courier company is only experiencing a slight delay in their shipment they probably are not going to bother contacting you directly. This isn't something that is worth their while, because usually by the time they have contacted every single client that has something on board an LTL or parcel shipping vehicle, the problem will have been alleviated and the shipment will be back on its way. This may be different if you're shipping FTL, in which case they may contact you even in the case of a small delay, as you're the only client shipping in that vehicle.
If you're shipping to meet a tight deadline, then you absolutely need to insist with your courier company that they contact you in the case of any kind of significant delay. A courier company that cannot contact their clients in the event of major delays such as vehicle accidents or delays at an international border is not providing the highest level of service possible to their clients, and as such it may be recommended that you look to another provider if this is something that you feel is important to your organization. Couriers may also provide this information in the form of online status updates.
