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Are you using Addison Lee couriers to handle your deliveries in London?
How is the company serving your business?
Or do you need a delivery in London with a little bit more edge?
In this post, we’ve put Addison Lee’s courier service to the test.
We compared it to three similar delivery services in London to see how they compare.
Specifically, we’ve looked at five key parameters:
Price.
Ease of use.
Delivery speed.
Quality of customer service.
Availability of couriers during peak hours.
So if your business is looking to replace Addison Lee, you’ll find the three best choices right here.
Addison Lee is a multi-vehicle multi-service fleet that has been operating in London since 1975. Their services range from car rentals and chauffeuring, to event and airport transfers across the UK to event transport.
As far as Addison Lee couriers are concerned, their services extend to three offers in London:
What works for Addison Lee is that it is the largest taxi firm in London. It has a combined fleet of over 7,000 vehicles that includes cars, small and large vans, bicycles and motorcycles.
So you can just as easily use their service for small one-off parcels, as well as for continuous delivery of large and multiple packages.
Not only that but the company has a special service called AL NOW.
AL NOW is specifically aimed at businesses. It allows your business to book a courier in London within a two-hour time window, which you can use to deliver goods to customers (up to 100 kg) all across the capital (within the M25).
To book Addison Lee couriers, visit their website and click on the Make a Booking button.
Once there, you’ll have to enter the pickup and dropoff locations and the date of the delivery:
Choose the vehicle for your delivery:
Add the contact information of the pickup and drop-off contact:
And select the payment method:
Besides this, you can also add a proof of delivery contact.
For the AL NOW B2B service, it works the same, except that you’ll have to create an Addison Lee account to use it.
The biggest downside is the price-to-quality-of-service ratio.
Addison Lee’s delivery pricing starts with a flat fee of £15. This price includes a collection of a parcel or package from a London postcode to an address in a 4-mile radius.
This however doesn’t include extra fees that you may have to pay, and that the company simply lists as “Standard pricing thereafter”.
So while you may start at £15, Addison Lee drivers may charge you additional fees for waiting during pick-up or drop-off, parking, or additional distance charges.
But this would be okay if the service was on par with the price, which it isn’t.
Instead, many people complain about:
Besides this, you’ll also have a problem booking a delivery with Addison Lee during peak hours, and especially during holidays.
Because they’re the largest and most well-known courier company in London, they have a lot of business at this time.
So while you may be a regular customer, you’ll still have trouble finding what you’re looking for, even if you do need a same-day delivery.
For all those reasons, we’re giving Addison Lee a score of 14.5 out of 25:
While Addison Lee has the largest courier fleet in London, it’s NOT the only one on offer.
In this post, we’re going to review five other local couriers that we think can be a good fit, especially when it comes to B2B delivery services.
Here are our top picks:
Brisqq is a delivery and courier service in London. Unlike most entries on the list, Brisqq is completely aimed at businesses, be it B2C or B2B.
It has also been designed around technology, with web store integration, online showrooming, live, on-map tracking, pickup and delivery status reports, customer notifications, and more.
Because of this, there are two offers on the table for you to choose from:
E-Commerce: Seamlessly integrate Brisqq with the checkout on your website or e-commerce platform and offer delivery to online shoppers in London without actually owning a delivery fleet.
Or
In-Store: Use the Brisqq web app to schedule deliveries and returns in one-hour time slots for an easy and more precise approach to how you hire couriers in London.
If you operate a business in London, then you know that your customers want convenience, speed, and quality with every delivery. And to do it all over their phone.
For a business in London this means having:
Brisqq offers all of this and more!
Brisqq is the most tech-advanced entry on the list. It enables your business to harness the power of technology to easily hire couriers and schedule deliveries all across London with:
Because Brisqq is a courier service aimed at businesses in London, each payment plan is customized based on your needs. On average, delivery starts at £6.50.
When it comes to payment it can be done after each delivery (via the credit card connected to your account) or at the end of the month.
Cancellations are free of charge within 15 minutes of scheduling the pick-up. Or if there are more than 60 minutes before the pick-up (for timeslot delivery) and two hours (for multi-drop delivery).
Brisqq is a reliable courier service alternative to Addison Lee, especially if you’re a business in London. For that reason, we give it 22.5 out of 25:
But don’t take our word for it:
“Our customers appreciate having a one-hour delivery slot, because like us, they’re extremely busy.” Mark Welford, Director and Co-Founder of Bloomsbury Flowers
Gophr is another tech-led courier service in the UK. Like Addison Lee, it isn’t just a local courier in London, but it offers next-day and same-day package delivery to many other cities:
On the other hand, like Brisqq, the company does use technology. With a network of couriers in multiple cities, they’re ideal for businesses that already have a delivery fleet, but need that little bit of extra support to service all of their customers.
But what really sets Gophr apart is their focus on eco-friendly delivery. In fact, they’re one of the first courier companies in London to use electric motorcycles or bikes.
Add to that their partnership with Parcelly - a company that owns 2,500 hyper-local warehouses across the UK - and they have much lower CO2 emissions when compared to Addison Lee.
How does Gophr outperform Addison Lee?
Gophr has many of the features a business in London is looking for:
As such, it’s a viable replacement for Addison Lee.
The only real issue customers have with their courier services is that sometimes they may miss delivery deadlines. But they’re more than happy to turn a blind eye to this due to their excellent customer service.
However, their hyper-local warehouses, courtesy of Parcelly, raise efficiency of their deliveries both in London and beyond.
That’s great news because it makes them the most competitive alternative in terms of price:
The Gophr delivery pricing is the cheapest on this list. It starts at £4.50 but without VAT.
However, the price depends a lot on the delivery itself.
For example, a bicycle delivery in London is the cheapest courier option. But depending on what kind of package you want to deliver and where, they’ll use a different vehicle. This raises the price significantly.
However, there’s an instant quote calculator on their website:
This makes it easier to get a sense of how much you’ll pay for your delivery.
If you already have a delivery fleet but you need additional support to handle all of your order volumes, Gophr is a good alternative to Addison Lee. Especially with a 4.5 excellence score on Trustpilot.
For that reason, Gophr scores almost as high as Brisqq with a commanding 20.5 out of 25:
CitySprint is a courier service that’s also a third-party logistics provider (3PL). The range of their services extend from next-day and same-day courier delivery through international delivery, to logistics, freight, and storage.
This makes them a direct competitor to Addison Lee.
But when it comes to delivery in London (and in the UK) is that they offer their courier services 24 hours a day, 365 a year. That makes them the most available courier service on our list.
In addition, their expertise in logistics and international delivery means that they partner with some of the leading shipping companies in the world. Which means that if you have a delivery on the continent, CitySprint is the ideal courier option.
Besides all the typical requirements of delivery in London, like same-day delivery, automated scheduling, or delivery tracking, using CitySprint courier services has additional advantages.
The biggest draw of CitySprint is the level of customization. They have over 20 different services you can choose from.
This allows you to choose a service that’s exactly the right fit for your business, in terms of type, size, order volumes, and complexity.
For example, if you deal in frozen foods, you can hire a refrigerated vehicle. If your business places emphasis on green logistics, you can choose their eco-friendly cargo bike delivery to and from anywhere in London.
Next, they pay special attention to security. All of their couriers are DBS-checked and regularly complete eLearning courses with digital ID badges for extra safety and security at pick-up.
The only real issue with their delivery service is that their couriers can sometimes be late, and there’s no real way of notifying customers if that happens. Or when the courier is on his way to the customer.
CitySprint deliveries start at £14.26 (without VAT). That makes them just a bit more affordable than Addison Lee.
In addition to this, CitySprint also includes fuel surcharges for specific deliveries:
But within the price you receive a £25 parcel coverage, in case the package gets damaged in transit. With an additional coverage option up to £1000.
CitySprint is a large courier fleet in London, with an extended service offer and expertise in logistics that make it ideal for businesses looking to outsource a delivery fleet.
But their price, legacy tech, and lower customer service mean they score 17.5 out of 25:
When it comes to courier services in London, Addison Lee has its pros and cons. But so do all of these other companies
But when it comes to our ratings Brisqq is the clear winner, with Gophr coming in slightly behind.
So if you’re looking for the best all-around alternative for business delivery in London choose Brisqq.
If you want to have that but provide additional support for your fleet, and extend your reach to other cities in the UK, choose Gophr.
And if you want to completely outsource your delivery to a 3PL or deliver something outside the UK, you’ll be happy with CitySprint.
Get in touch with Brisqq. Fill out a quick form and we’ll get back to you in less than 2 minutes.
One of our support staff is always on call with a tailor-made offer for your business or a quote that’s in line with your delivery needs and your budget.
Imagine what you want your delivery to look like…
And start delivering that experience to your customers today!