JC Couriers

JC Couriers is a delivery and logistics company based in Peterborough, making same day parcel deliveries throughout the UK.

“We’re nearly 30 years old,” states Mario Chappell, Director of JC Couriers, “and we started, back in the day, from the conservatory of the previous owner. He used to be a bike courier, operating alone. Then, the company grew and grew until I took over in 1999. I bought the company in 2000 and I’ve been Director ever since.

“We do same-day and next-day deliveries, some logistics and we offer some specialist services as well. We currently employ between 15-20 people, and we have some self-employed individuals too.”

JC Couriers have now been a Croner client for just under a year, and have utilised both the HR advice, and a health & safety face-to-face visit.

The move to Croner came about following the departure of a long-term supplier of HR support. Mario explains:

“The guy who was my HR outsourced advisor took on a role at a larger company. That left me without anybody to manage HR. I was just thinking ‘what am I going to do?’ when I received an email inviting me to one of your events at the Marriott.

“I went to see what was what and I liked what I heard. I met up with one of the other attendees who was a current client of Croner and said she was very happy with the service. I thought, if the price was right, I’d definitely be signing up, as it seemed to be exactly what I needed.

“I’d had experience with other national HR providers, and there was alway something not quite right. It was like they wanted my money more than my business. Whereas with Croner it genuinely feels like they want me to be a success. And I'm happy with that relationship.

“I knew Croner by name from when you used to advise the Despatch Association. I had a contact who received Croner advice as a member of the association, and he had a lot of faith in the quality of advice Croner provided.”

“We had an H&S Consultant visit us on-site,” remembers Mario, “she basically did an internal audit, like we used to do with the ISO. She looked at all the various bits that we do, asked for a walk-around, wanted to see how things worked, wanted to look how we managed our quality and health & safety, looked at our policies and documentation.

“She left us with some documents to propagate around, things like desk work assessments, which we completed. She also left us with some action points to work on before the next visit.

“She came back and ensured we were at a point where she was satisfied we were managing our health & safety properly. Overall, we were happy with the on-site visit and the service provided.”

JC Couriers also have access to the 24/7 advice line, and utilise it almost exclusively for employment law queries:

“Whenever we call up the advice line it’s always in relation to HR issues. The advice line is very helpful, it pretty much answers our queries every time I call up, to be honest.

“I would recommend the Croner service to others in our sector- especially couriers, because apart from the odd company that provides services specific to our business, there’s not much support out there.”