Freight Industry Insights October 2024 - From Geoff Yates

This week, I have been out of the office to visit some high profile Espace Customs Consortium clients as our renewals for 2025-25 get in full swing.

It’s always a highlight of the year for me to be able to sit down face-to-face with clients, review our performance over the last year, understand where we can improve and get to know our clients plans for the year ahead.

One visit this last month in particular stands out. We have a multi-faceted relationship with a client of 20 years, one which spans our entire operation: European, UK, European express, air, ocean and customs clearance and one, which our client summed up in one word, VALUE.

Value goes above and beyond cheapest price and we’ve always tried to avoid that market anyhow. We want to make sure our clients get the best service, and we want to be able to supply the best and most reliable carriers to provide that service. Value to a shipper means knowing your goods will get from A to B on time and in good condition without any hassle at the right price, and knowing you have our support when it really matters.

Like when HMRC claim you’ve underpaid your VAT on imports for months and are demanding payment of the difference. Of course, we double backed on the import customs declarations we’d made for this client, double then triple checked them to make sure we were correct and provided evidence to HMRC that they were in fact wrong. Our customs experts even attended an online meeting with our client and HMRC to prove we had correctly declared on behalf of our client. For ￡45 per declaration, in the eyes of many, this represents ultimate value. To learn more about the Espace Customs Consortium, visit www.espaceglobalfreight.com/customs

Feedback is always nice to receive face to face, and it’s great to share with colleagues too, but it also helps us to be able to show it online. If you’ve had a fantastic experience with one or many of our co-owners, and believe we offer value, we’d be very grateful if you could share your opinion online via Google reviews. A link to our Google page is here https://g.page/r/CVjyYlpo0cKWEAE/review

Being out and about provides me with other opportunities too. Having been in this game for over 25 years, a trip on the motorway always provides a great window for some truck spotting. Given my background, a particular speciality of mine is European trucks, and I have to say, I’ve noticed a dramatic decrease in the number of trucks from the EU seen on UK roads.

This could represent numerous things: drivers are already going back home for the All-Saints weekend this week, there’s a modal shift happening towards short sea and rail, UK hauliers are becoming more competitive… The list goes on and only time will tell what is really happening. What I can promise you is that as a specialist freight forwarder with relationships with thousands of EU hauliers, we’ll be able to offer you the best truck availability on the market.

On my way home, I had a timely reminder of the risk drivers take to deliver goods on time across the UK, Europe and the rest of the world as I witnessed a truck tag a car which had dramatically changed lanes on the M6 at 60 mph. As the clocks go back this weekend and the nights get darker sooner, take some extra time to get to where you’re going and get there safely.

On a lighter note, we’ll be celebrating Halloween in the office with a dress-up day! Watch out for some spooktacular photos on our socials next week. Whatever you’re doing, I hope you’ll enjoy your Halloween celebrations too!

Best wishes, Geoff