With another busy year ahead, earmarked with significant investment, expanding product portfolios, and improved efficiencies across all its leading garden brands, the AMES Companies must ensure its logistics systems are ready to respond. 

With Transport Manager, Emily Handley, at the helm, it’s safe to say AMES customers can rest assured that the company is well prepared to fulfil customer deliveries throughout 2024. 

Here, Emily tells us more about the preparations she and her team have made to ensure industry-leading standards are exceeded with every delivery.

Strong relationships with hauliers

“Being a partner of choice is one of the core goals of AMES Companies, and that hasn’t changed moving into 2024. Over the last 12 months, we have listened carefully to customer feedback and made positive changes.

“We’re dedicated to bringing retailers reliable deliveries that arrive on time. My team and I have spent time building great relationships with several local and national haulier companies. In doing so, we have ensured we have enough driver cover throughout the year to fulfil deliveries. Success this year looks like a small number of haulier partners who fulfil daily and weekly deliveries.”

To maintain consistency, AMES Companies drivers deliver to the same retailers each time. This might seem like a small detail, but the consistency enables the drivers and their stores to build meaningful relationships. Emily comments that this supports the AMES Companies’ focus on customer centricity. “We expect our haulier partners to build great rapport with our customers, and we work with them because they’re passionate about their work - they’re committed to providing a first-class service.”

One such haulier is Kevco. Talking about the importance of partnership, Mark Ormondroyd, Operations Director said: “We’ve worked closely with Emily and the team since becoming a direct logistical partner entrusted with AMES customer volumes under the Kevco Logistics banner to ensure that deliveries meet deadlines with the retailers purchasing the products. Our business believes in friendly, professional, and reliable service. This has allowed us to develop a good working relationship with AMES and its customers, which has been imperative to the successful long-standing partnership.”

During peak season, the uplift in demand means that the AMES Companies must also rely on national hauliers to meet every customer delivery within competitive timeframes. “We’ve carefully chosen national partners whose ethos is aligned with us and who can support us with additional volume during peak times,” added Emily.

Campeys of Selby, located just 20 minutes from the AMES Companies headquarters, is one of the hauliers that is part of the team. With a triple-figure fleet size, the team has enough capacity to meet AMES demand during peak season.  Harry Campey, Commercial & Operations Director, said: “Our business is built on customer service, trust, efficiencies, and being cost-effective - core values align with those at AMES and have helped to strengthen our relationship over the years. We believe in technology and transparency; this is why AMES group can access our live online portal and track and trace loads without communicating with our operations team. Finally, to ensure reliability our assets are modern and fitted with the latest technology, including AI, to ensure deliveries are on time and with data that can be extracted should any queries arise post-delivery.”

Emily said, “We know this approach works – 70% of deliveries are delivered within three days, well ahead of the agreed service levels.”

Efficient load planning and routes

The key to success is partly due to AMES Companies’ ability to approach deliveries proactively, including advanced routing schedules for drivers. 

Emily credits a recent recruitment drive for introducing these new processes: “Our Transport team has grown to seven colleagues in the last twelve months, and they are, frankly, a group of superstars! Each colleague has brought a unique skill set and background in different industries, so there’s a real breadth of experience in the team. Together, we work to plan routes and loads with our customers in mind, and we’re in regular communication with our drivers to ensure that the reality matches the concept, with happy customers across the board.” 

Taking this one step further, the AMES Companies haulier partners are also actively involved in critical decisions. In doing so, they can help provide the best service available for customers. An example of this being the successful collaborative loading processes for brand new AMES Tools deliveries. Emily credits those haulier partnerships with playing an integral role in the planning and execution of ongoing AMES Tool deliveries. 

Andrew Dean, owner of Dean Transport, with whom AMES has a highly established working relationship, said: “As the longest-standing permanent haulier to AMES, we have been able to build a strong working relationship with all AMES departments. Effective communication between everyone is fundamental and enables us to provide a first-class, high-quality service to AMES and their customers. Our diverse fleet enables us to support AMES throughout their production process, from bringing in the raw materials to delivering the finished product to the customer.

Customer feedback is paramount

Unlike other companies, AMES dedicates time to hearing from customers on improving delivery services. “It’s important to us that we get every single delivery correct, every time. To do this and to ensure that we stay ahead of the curve, catching any issues or concerns before they occur, we allocate time to receive honest and open feedback from our customers so we can continually improve our delivery service.”

Emily added: “By bringing our transport team in-house, we have enabled them to have complete oversight over our delivery scheduling and routes. This means we can act quickly to avoid disruption to customers and ensure delivery KPIs are met, as well as plan the full routes for our drivers to ensure we are efficient.

What’s next for the AMES Companies?

Continuous improvement is key. With Emily at the helm, the Transport team will focus on efficient routes and automatically creating loads.

Emily concluded by saying: “Not ones to rest on our laurels, we’re continuing to assess our protocols and look where we can make new investment to strengthen our offering. We’re currently trialling new software with a suite of analytics, helping us further improve our delivery performance. We’re proud of what we’ve done so far – so you can also look out for AMES Companies branded trailers on the road very soon!

Find out more

To stay up to date with all the latest news from AMES Companies please visit www.ames-uk.com