Heavy Equipment Shipping 101 – How to choose the right company
If you’re a civil engineer or working in the construction sector, you know there are some tools you must have to operate efficiently—and these are heavy equipment.
You can use these machines for excavation, heavy lifting, transportation of heavy materials, cutting trees, demolition, and others. The types of heavy equipment you may require for construction include excavators, bulldozers, tower cranes, backhoes, graders, loaders, wheel tractor scrapers, pavers, and trenchers.
That said, if you decide to ship heavy equipment for your construction business, then you may require the assistance of a professional service provider. You can’t just trust any company you find out there for transportation helicopter and other expensive machines. You must check whether the shipping company you want to hire meets some criteria before you sign a deal with it.
Here are important tips to help you select the right shipping company for your heavy equipment:
Ask For An Operating License
The most important thing you must consider when hiring a shipping company for your heavy equipment is its legality. Some companies out there offer heavy equipment shipping services that are unauthorized. In other words, they aren’t legally established. That’s why you need to ask for an operating license.
Only contact a licensed shipping firm like Next Exit Logistics or any other similar service provider to transport your heavy construction machines.
Find An Experienced Company
In addition, to ask for an operating license, you may also want to check the company’s experience level. That’s important since a firm with adequate experience will likely provide better services. Therefore, after asking for an operating license, go the extra mile and check their experience level.
One of the best strategies to confirm the experience level of a particular heavy equipment shipping company is to visit its website to see the year it was started. A firm that has operated for many years has more experience than those established a few months ago. Consider partnering with a heavy equipment shipping company that has operated for a while.
Select A Firm With Insurance
Investing in heavy construction equipment will cost you a lot of money. Therefore, it’s important to ensure they arrive safely at your premises. However, something wrong may happen sometimes and damage your machines while in transit.
You can’t operate with damaged equipment. Therefore, you’ll be forced to spend a lot of money repairing or finding other machines. That hurts your business profitability. But the good thing is that you can partner with a shipping company with insurance to save money.
Working with a shipping company with insurance means that your heavy equipment are insured. Therefore, you won’t be worried about misplaced or damaged machines. Their insurance service provider will come and pay for the repair of the damaged tools. That enables you to save a lot of money.
Check The Company’s Credibility
You’ll probably search online for a shipping company for your heavy construction machines. While enhancing your convenience, it can also turn out to be a total disaster. That’s true, especially when you sign a deal with a service provider that has a bad reputation since it’ll barely offer better services. That’s where checking their credibility comes in.
You can implement various strategies to ensure you hire a credible shipping company. For instance, you can look for online reviews about it. This involves visiting their online platforms to read other clients’ opinions.
If you see a lot of positive opinions, then that’s a firm you can trust to assist in shipping your heavy equipment. On the other hand, many negative comments are a reflection of poor services.
You should avoid any company with negative reviews. But if you find mixed reactions from different customers, you may want to investigate to see how the shipping company you want to hire responds to negative criticism.
In addition to reading online reviews, you may want to get in touch with their past clients. You can achieve that by asking the company to give you some references. That allows you to talk to the clients they’ve previously served to get their perception so that you can make an informed decision.
Asking for references can help you understand the shipping company you want to hire. However, you must be careful to ensure they don’t give you references for only satisfied clients. For that reason, you can devise a strategy to ensure the selected references are selected randomly.
For instance, you can ask references for customers whose names start with specific letters or from a specific location. That way, you’ll get mixed reactions from different clients to help you make an informed decision. Strive to sign a deal with a firm that has an established positive reputation.
Check Their Delivery Time
Delivery time is another important thing to consider to ensure you find the right heavy construction equipment shipping company. If possible, ensure you hire a firm that’ll take the least time to deliver your machines.
If it takes too long to deliver heavy machinery, it’ll hurt your operations and likely lose revenues. Also, when machines stay too long in transit, they can get damaged—and that causes delays in your operations. Ensure you find a shipping company with a short delivery time.
Compare Prices
Lastly, compare prices to help select the best shipping company. That’s important since various service providers have different pricing structures. If you want to save money, consider hiring a firm with the lowest price for their shipping services. However, you shouldn’t compromise the quality of services to save money.
Takeaway
Running a construction business can be one of the most effective ways to make huge profits. That’s true since it’s a high-demand opportunity now as the number of people looking for construction services increases daily. Therefore, you’ll likely connect with several clients.
While that’s the case, you need heavy equipment to run a successful construction firm. And to move such items to your premises, you’ll need the help of a shipping company. But with so many on the market, it can be overwhelming to know which is the best for you. That shouldn’t be the case since you can implement the strategies in this article to ensure you connect with the right service provider.
