A phone call at half past five
A customer rings: the daily collection did not come today. They have fifteen parcels waiting and their own customers expecting them tomorrow. The controller checks. The collection was never put on today's board. The usual controller was on holiday, and the stand-in did not know about it, because it lives in the usual controller's head and a diary on their desk.
The same thing happened after the last bank holiday, when every regular job shifted and two were forgotten.
Why regular work gets missed
Regular collections are so routine that nobody writes them down properly. They start as a favour for a good customer, become part of the week, and are managed by habit. Your job system may be designed for one-off bookings, so there is no natural place for a standing order.
| Pattern | Where it breaks |
|---|---|
| Daily collection at a fixed time | Controller off, stand-in does not know |
| Weekly or fortnightly run | Forgotten on the off week |
| Collection only on request | Customer assumes it is automatic |
| Bank holidays and closures | Schedules not adjusted |
| Customer skips a day | Message not passed on, driver goes anyway |
What missed collections cost
Your most reliable revenue is also your easiest to lose. Regular customers are the backbone of a courier business, and a missed collection breaks the thing they value most: not having to think about it. A second miss often ends the relationship.
Wasted trips cost too: a driver sent to a customer who had told someone they were closed.
Regular work is also where pricing drifts. A daily collection agreed years ago at a friendly rate may now be run with a bigger van, an extra stop and a longer wait, and because it is managed by habit, nobody has looked at whether it still pays. When it lives in the system as a standing order, you can see what it actually involves.
And a regular customer whose collection is missed usually has their own customers waiting, so your miss becomes their problem with their customers, which they remember when a competitor calls.
Scheduled collections we build
- Standing orders per customer: days, times, frequency, collection and delivery points, vehicle type and notes.
- Jobs generated automatically in your courier software or dispatch board ahead of time, so they appear on the day's plan like any other job.
- A holiday calendar that moves or cancels scheduled jobs, with customers asked to confirm their plans ahead of bank holidays.
- A simple way for customers to skip or add a collection through a link or message, updating the job.
- An alert if a scheduled job has no driver assigned by a set time.
- Billing handled for regular work, whether per job or as a fixed monthly charge.
What changes
Regular collections happen because they are in the system, not in someone's head. Stand-in controllers see them. Bank holidays are planned for. Customers can skip or add days without a phone call being lost. And your steady work stays steady.
Signs your regular collections are at risk
- Regular collections are held in a diary or spreadsheet.
- A missed collection is discovered when the customer rings.
- Bank holidays cause confusion about which runs happen.
- Customers' skip requests do not always reach the driver.
- Only one controller knows the full list of regular work.