Cross Country Courier has been said to be one of the leading logistics companies that is in business to revolutionize the industry. The head of the courier department, Mr. Toyin Adeojo disclosed this to Nigeria CommunicationsWeek stating that the primary objective of the company’s diversification into the courier segment is to keep customer loyalty. He said that after a careful study of the inadequacies in the way already existing courier firms run the business where sensitive documents and parcels are delivered wrongly or even declared missing, the management of the company felt the need to come on board to correct these lapses while leveraging on their strong advantages.
Adeojo revealed that the transport company has over a thousand fleet which traverse all the major cities and state capitals in Nigeria coupled with the quality of staff in the establishment who mostly university graduates are necessitating the floating of the courier company. The pressure from their clients who would always want to send parcels and letters to different destinations in the country through the transport company because of the level of trust they have on the company also gave impetus to the flagging off of the courier firm.
Apart from the normal courier services which the company renders, Adeojo said it is also a technical partner to many courier companies including the world celebrated ones which make use of the Cross Country fleet on daily basis. He said the company deploys over a hundred buses from its Lagos terminal alone on daily basis and that this feat is replicated in their other branch networks across the country.
The courier firm also engages in prime services such as Traders Groupage which involves customers instructing the courier firm to take charge of what has been cleared on their behalf at the seaport or airport and send them to the destination of the customers. There is another one they call Express Help Buy or Express Help Delivery. With these products, the courier company can buy items for the client and send them to the places requested by the client. The customer can as well buy those goods by himself and send them through the courier company even if he is not accompanying the consignment, all these services , Adeojo said are moderate compared to the quality offer they render.
Adeojo said that from the outside, one may tend to criticize the practice of motor transport companies also running courier, but arguing from an informed point of view one would discover that most of the so called conventional courier companies still fall back on the transport companies’ logistics to send their messages across the length and breath of the federation. Coming from this background, Adeojo said " Nobody in our shoes will not make use of such an advantage by floating a courier".
He also maintained that even with the more than 200 registered players in the courier industry that the market is still not yet saturated as some of the registered ones are not practicing.
Adeojo spoke about competition in the industry and expressed that the credibility of the outfit as a dedicated and registered courier firm makes them stand out even as he emphasized that anybody can run errands but that in Cross Country Courier, they run errands with uncommon diligence. Prompt and safe delivery of mails and parcels according to Adeojo, is their key selling point. "We are out to provide a better professional mail and home delivery in a way that is cheaper, fast and safe with content remaining in tact on delivery", said Adeojo.
In spite of the bourgeoning courier business, he however frowned at the activities of some courier companies who are undercutting the business by accepting prices for services less than the industry stipulated prices even as he lampooned security operatives for making business difficult for them. He said that in certain situations, security operatives go the extra length of insisting that courier personnel unseal some of the consignments under their care arguing that this practice is a breach of trust on the part of their clients who they owe the obligation of delivering their parcels sealed and in tact.