Once in a while - not very often, but perhaps two or three times a year - it happens that a package meant for us here atAble Courier to pick up and deliver is actually picked up by a US Postal worker by mistake. It happened again today (which prompted this blog post).What happens after that? "It depends" (isn't that great?). In this particular case our customer was able to re-print the contents fairly quickly, so we were still able to deliver the package on time. This is not always possible, so sometimes it becomes necessary to try and track down the worker involved (time-consuming and not always successful).Why does this happen? Most often because a business tends to leave outgoing items of all sorts in the same general location without an explicit indication that the one intended for us should be left where it is until we arrive. A busy US Postal worker may just assume that anything in that area is meant for pickup. A particular hazard is if it's an envelope with postage already on it, which can happen if it was meant to be mailed earlier but now has to go by courier becausetoday is the deadline and it has to be there by 4:00!!!How can this be avoided? The simplest way is to make sure a package meant for us is obviously indicated as such, perhaps by attaching a Post-It saying "Able Courier" or placing it in an area marked with a sign saying something like "Outgoing Courier". It may be helpful to have a similar area for the Postal service or even just a tray marked "Outgoing Mail".Making sure everyone knows who is supposed to pick up what can save a lot of time and aggravation. ...read more

When asked, a recent customer told us he had found us by using the simple search term "courier 55124", which turned up our Apple Valley rate sheet on the first result page.We've noticed before that many search engines have indexed some or all of our rate pages. This can often speed uplocating a particular rate sheet on our websiteby using one."Able courier" can narrow down results versus just "courier", and a city name often works just as well as a Zip Code.Search engines do exhibit a bias toward couriers physically based near locations used in search terms, even though couriers as an industry serve areas much larger than their immediate surroundings. Still, using a search engine can still be a useful shortcut to quickly locating one of our rate pages! ...read more

Our hosting company has apparently resolved the problems plaguing their machines. We're crossing our fingers! We also tweaked our site a bit ourselves in hopes of making it a bit easier to use the rate pages. If you try it, let us know what you think! ...read more

...at least we hope the service interruption is temporary. Our web hosting service is experiencing severe technical difficulties it has so far been unable to resolve, affecting many other websites besides ours. We will continue to monitor the situation as best we can. ...read more

One of the perks of being a courier is learning where things are. Not just pickup and dropoff locations, but quirky little businesses we might not otherwise have found - or city parks. Parks are fine places to loiter for a bit while waiting for the next delivery order. Green trees, fresh air, people watching, peaceable, many times a lake or river and sometimes even a restroom! We here at Able Courier are certainly not alone in our appreciation of a little nature time. However there are some visitors we will never understand. There are a noticeable number of people who not only never leave their vehicles after they've arrived, but they keep it running as well. Sometimes for half an hour or more. We suppose in summer that's to keep the air conditioning running, and in winter to keep the heater running. But - why do these people come (from their sterile cubicles and faceless office buildings, we like to imagine) if they're not willing to take a park for what it is? Warm in summer, cold in winter, a sort of tamed wilderness, a speck of nature in the midst of a city? As it is, the noise and pollution created by vehicles that otherwise just sit there doing nothing completely spoils the ambience. The park is no longer an oasis, a quiet respite, but feels as if it has invaded by insensate brutes who can't appreciate what they have, where they are. Or so it seems to us. ...read more

Phone numbers.This came to our attention here atAble Courierbecause of something we experience once in a while: after receiving a phone call from a potential customer and exchanging information about a possible delivery, nothing is finalized but we're told "I'll call back" after checking with a supervisor or getting to the office or whatnot.The problem from our point of view - and it's not one experienced by all businesses, particularly those not in "do it now" fields - is that now we're in a sort of limbo. We know of a possible delivery, where it comes from and where it's going. How long should we try to accomodate our schedule to that possibility? Do we have any responsibility to that potential customer to let them know if we can no longer do so?In some cases it's easy enough to assume that supervisory approval was not forthcoming. In others the time frame orginally discussed expires without incident.But sometimes the call comes in the morning and the timeframe is "today". As our schedule fills up, how long should we try to hold a spot open?This last week we had one of those calls from out of town. The request was for a document search at one of the county courthouses. We were told we were going to receive an e-mail outlining what to look for.When the e-mail had not arrived after several hours it became clear we could not complete the request in the time remaining that day.We could have done the simple thing and just called the number noted by our Caller ID earlier in the day. We decided to first try to verify where that number came from and who had contacted us.First we tried Google, of course. Years ago the Google search engine used to provide very nice results when given a phone number. Alas, those days are no more. Given a bare phone number, Google currently provides nothing but a list of websites whose sole purpose is to persuade you to pay money for any information connected to that number. Pages and pages of such websites - which probably means they're nothing but shells set up to game Google's algorithm - and nothing but such companies - which probably means there are so many an actual useful result can't be detected by Google before it decides to cut off searching.Different but only sometimes more useful is to precede the phone number with the key phrase "phone:". This can turn up "crowd-sourced" websites that enable you to learn if other people have been hearing from telemarketers using that number. If you like, you can complain about it as well.Not really finding anything useful, on a whim we decided to try Microsoft's Bing search engine.Well! The bare phone number turned up three results. Not three pages, three results total. Each one had a name and e-mail address as well. Just what we wanted!Almost like what Google used to provide... ...read more

So we here atAble Courierhave been spending a little time answering questions here on Merchant Circle (yes, we're trying to build up whatever credit this method might provide). It turns out not many people are asking questions directly related to our core competency, so we've been wandering around the electronics forum.Huh. Answer one little question and MC starts throwing related ones at you from years and years ago...Anyway, a startling large number of people Just Don't Get It: DO NOT surf the Web without virus protection!! Their new PC comes with a copy of Norton or MacAfee, the trial period runs out, they don't renew, they surf anyway, they catch a virus, and all of sudden they want to know where they can find free virus protection.The answer is so easy it's hard to believe the asker doesn't have the initiative to type the question into Google. In fact other people have had similar reactions to other easily answered questions. They made awebsite just for such petitioners:But we digress. There are three commonly recommended free anti-virus programs:1)Avast2)AVG3)Microsoft Security EssentialsPick one. Any one. They're all good. We ourselves use Microsoft Security Essentials: it's free, it's effective and it's quiet. We especially like that last quality - unlike Norton or MacAfee, MSE never talks to us unless it's got something important to say. No hectoring beyond the occasional mild reproof that we haven't told it to do a thorough manual scan lately.One other thing: if you have Windows 8 (at the time of this writing the Latest and Greatest), you don't need to download or install anything. Under this operating system Microsoft Security Essentials has been renamed Windows Defender (long story) and is by default a part of Windows 8.If your Windows 8 computer came with a trial version of Norton or MacAfee, Windows Defender is inactive. When Norton or MacAfee starts asking for money, if you like it and want to keep it, go ahead and pay. If you don't, delete it and turn on Windows Defender.Just don't surf the net at all without some kind of anti-virus protection! ...read more

We've had a long run with the Dex Yellow Pages - long enough that they had another name when we bought our first ad, some fifteen or more years ago. It was a good investment at the time. Almost as soon the first Minneapolis book hit the street we started getting calls. We were so pleased it took no persuasion at all for us to buy an ad in the Saint Paul book as well. Over the last year or two it's become apparent the yellow pages are a dying medium. Perhaps longer than that, but it's only over that period we've been asking new customers how they found us. Most often the response is "the Web". The last person who told us "the Yellow Pages" meant the on-line version. If memory serves, there is only one other delivery company in the area with anything other than standard one line listing (memory has to serve, because we don't use the book ourselves any more!). The company that bought the Dex Yellow Pages from the company previous to the one currently running our phone system (really, they change hands so often it's not worth trying to keep up with the name changes) paid a couple of billion dollars for it. Even at that time we thought it seemed like a crazy amount of money to spend for an asset with such a predictably short shelf life. Maybe they've come around to regretting their purchase as well. In the Old Days - even a couple of years ago - we'd get a call once a year a few months before the book came out. A real live person would discuss our options and what, if anything, we wanted to change. Not so this year. We got a bulk mail letter shortly after Christmas stating that if we did nothing, here's what we'd get: a price hike of more than 10%. Here's what the missive did not have: (1) an e-mail address, (2) a website address or (3) a deadline. Oh, it did have a person's name and a toll-free number to call. That number led to voicemail. A voicemail that had a long message explaining exactly how calls were prioritized for response. Not too surprisingly the message also said cancelling via the voicemail was not an option. Also those wishing to cancel were not a priority for callbacks. There was another number given for those wishing to cancel. THAT number got a robot claiming "our menu options have changed" (we'd rather enjoy meeting the person who thought that ubiqutious message up, just so we could express how helpful we find it). The robot then listed a few. Not that its actual response to any of the selections went beyond repeating them again. And again. And again. Maybe it doesn't matter. The "fine print" in the terms of service Dex claims we are bound by says cancellation can only be done in writing. Which we promptly did. That Dex is apparently extremely unwilling to actually interact with its customers was not the fundamental reason, but it certainly made the decision that much easier. ...read more

Again today we observed a driver sail through a red light long, long, long after the light had turned green in our favor. We were actually approaching the intersection (Johnson&St Anthony Pkwy, for what it's worth) from a distance and so hadn't reached it yet. But yes, it was our green. We've seen this before. What are they thinking? Probably this: "I don't see a car ahead of me right now, so it's quite safe to keep jabbering away on my cellphone." 'Tis a sad fact that most of us are not nearly as good at multi-tasking as we'd like to think. In the case of chatting while driving, we're also watching for what we consider the most dangerous outside factor: other cars in our path. It turns out many of us have nothing left to spare for things not directly in our path, such as traffic lights. What can anyone do? Well, perhaps all that can be done is watch for stopped cars at the intersection you're approaching on a green. If you see one or more, it's a pretty good bet that no one is going to run the red. If you don't, take another look to make sure no one traveling on the cross street is oblivious to you. In fact it's probably a good idea to always look. Other drivers can do stupid, dangerous things at the oddest moments. Then like as not they'll try to blame you. Might be a good idea to have your lawyer get a hold of the other driver's cellphone records at the time. ...read more

For the most part the sort of local courier service we offer here atAble Courierinvolves coming to your location to pick up your package and then delivering it to its destination. This is basically standard practice within the seven-county area surrounding Minneapolis and Saint Paul.However once in a while it happens that a customer (usually out of state, sometimes out of the country) wants to e-mail a document to us, have us print it out and then deliver it. Admittedly this doesn't happen every day, but on the other hand it's happened often enough that we thought it might be worth mentioning as a service we can provide.There is an extra charge for the time and expense of providing this service. This may vary depending on the length of the document.If you need print-and-deliver service, it's best to give us as much notice as possible. Ideally we'd like to receive your document today for delivery tomorrow. That way we can print out the document overnight and have it ready for delivery first thing in the morning.Another plus of doing it this way is that we can guarantee a specific delivery time. For same day print-and-delivery our only guarantee is that it will be done "Same Day".Another point is the format of your e-mailed document. We normally prefer Portable Document Format (PDF) files. For Microsoft Word files (DOC and DOCX), or indeed any files produced by Microsoft Office, we first try to useOpen Officeto deal with them. If your document can be read by Open Office, we can print it for you! ...read more

Have you seen this symbol on your dashboard recently? All vehicles sold since the 2008 model year should have a Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS). This symbol (or something like  it) should signal a warning whenever the pressure in one or more tires goes below 75% of recommended. At Able Courier we saw this symbol come on in a 2012 model vehicle just last week. Let's see...what else happened last week? Ah - the temperature dropped into the 40's! Lower temperature = lower tire pressure. When we checked, all four tires were at about 25 psi instead of the recommended 32 psi. Hmm. This has probably - okay certainly - happened every year. We've just never had a warning light to tell us about it before. So we've never before done anything about it. But lower pressure = lower gas mileage. There are actually many reasons why gas mileage gets lower in the winter. Keeping your tires at recommended pressure is one of the few things you can do to help offset that. Plus, your vehicle will most likely be safer to drive as well! ...read more

You know how it was: you were in a downtown area, needing to park your vehicle, and suddenly you spotted an open spot on the street, (carefully) parallel parked, got out to feed the meter and realized it had time left on it! Maybe even more than you needed! Ah, those were the days! No more. If you haven't been to downtown Minneapolis lately, you may not be aware that almost all the old meters have been torn out and replaced with a "post and pay box" system. Not only that, but many curbsides that previously had no meters at all are now sporting the new technology. How it works: every block has a numbered post at each legal parking spot and a single pay box located on the sidewalk on one side of the block. To use the system, park you vehicle, get out, memorize the five-digit number on the post, find the pay box, punch in the post number, and feed the box either quarters (one for eight minutes, two for fifteen) or a credit card ($2 minimum). The box then spits out a paper receipt showing the same five digit number and the time when your right to park in that spot expires. Hang onto it; it's all you 've got to show the judge if there's ever a question about whether you got ticketed a bit early. You can remember a five-digit number for however long it take you to find the pay box, right? Of course if Minneapolis must use a five-digit number, it could use three for a block number and only two for the spot itself. That would allow for a thousand metered blocks of 99 spots each while only requiring a two-digit number to be remembered, since the first three digits would be the same for all spots. But such is the price of progress. In winter you may have to negotiate slippery snowbanks to perform your legal duty. Pity if you're old and a bit shaky on your feet. This isn't one of those situations where the city is required to make things easy for you! Too bad if you parked on the side that doesn't have the pay box! And of course there is no way to know if the spot you picked has any time left over from the previous occupant. But hey, if the city can sell the same spot twice, why shouldn't it? For most of the summer Saint Paul seemed a quaint throwback to simpler times. It was still occasionally possible to find an old-fashioned meter with time left, and it was just as big a thrill as it always was. Alas, last week we noticed a block of them had been torn out and replaced with the same "post and pay box" system Minneapolis is so fond of. It seems only a matter of time until Saint Paul is completely converted to the new way of doing things. If it all seems like too much to bother with but you still need something picked up or dropped off in one of the downtowns, consider letting Able Courier do the job for you! ...read more

Once in a while it happens that circumstances change after an order is placed with Able Courier that causes a customer to wish to cancel that order. The item may not be ready on time, for instance. Whatever the reason, we appreciate knowing about the cancellation as soon as possible. The delicate question then arises, "Is there any charge for cancelling?" Ah, like so many other areas, the answer is "It depends." Depends on what? Well, our policy has generally been that cancellations can be made at no charge as long as our courier has not yet arrived at the pickup location. Once at the pickup location, however, a minimum "No Load" charge is applicable. The amount of a "No Load" charge can vary. It is usually based on the price of a delivery staying entirely within the city and Zip Code of the pickup location. This is always the lowest price for any deliveries for any particular city and Zip Code. However total distance travelled is a factor in determing our rates, so it does tend to increase the farther the pickup is from the central cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. The time the shipment was supposed to be ready also affects "No Load" charges. The lowest price available at that time is typically the one charged. During the business day this is our Economy price for pickups before noon and a Three Hour price for pickups after noon. Nights, weekends and holidays can incur substantially higher "No Load" charges. When all is said and done, order cancellation is still a relatively rare event (and we hope to keep it that way!). But if an order must be cancelled, it is best to do it as soon as possible to avoid a "No Load" charge. ...read more

How much it costs to operate a vehicle is naturally one that we here at Able Courier pay a lot of attention to. The cost that gets the most attention these days is gas. It wasn't always so, though. Of the four categories we pay attention to - depreciation, fuel, maintenance and insurance - for many years insurance was the highest yearly cost. Not that we overall had a bad driving record; that's just the way it was. But our insurance costs have declined while prices in the other three categories have gone up. It can now take several hundred thousand miles to drive the cost of a vehicle itself below, say, ten cents a mile. A vehicle averaging 35 miles per gallon costs about the same amount in fuel these days (when we first opened up it was still possible to find fuel for less one dollar a gallon!). Maintenance costs have gone up, partly because there is less and less the do-it-yourself backyard mechanic can actually do any more. We've added a page to our website consisting of various ways of considering vehicle operating costs. Some of the data concerns things we hadn't previously thought about much. For instance, while we've often created "per mile" spreadsheets, we only recently decided to ask "So how much does it cost to go ten miles? A hundred? A thousand? Etcetera" The answer is arrived at by simple multiplication, of course, but the numbers are still sometimes surprising. For vehicles with low gas mileage, the cost of fuel can approach or exceed its original price well before it dies of old age. Another question we hadn't asked about fuel before was "How long does it take to spend that much in fuel costs?" Another answer arrived at by simple arithmetic, it gives us a new appreciation of how rich some people (*cough* full size pickup at 70 mph *cough*) must be to be able to afford burning through gas money at the rates they do! ...read more

This question was asked this week by a new customer (ie., someone we hadn't dealt with before) sending an item to a large downtown Minneapolis law firm. It's not one we here atAble Courier get asked very often, but it does touch on the whole issue of who is responsible for payment of our delivery service.In almost all cases the answer is "the party that orders the service". We find it difficult to imagine any other possibility. In the case prompting this posting, for instance, the large downtown Minneapolis law firm is not one of our customers. How could we possibly charge them for something they might not even know is coming? A contract is basically an agreement between two parties, and we don't see how anyone can be bound to pay when there is no agreement in place.The only exception to this general rule - the ordering party pays - is if a customer of ours has previously notified us that "so-and-so" will be calling us at some point for a delivery. For example, "so-and-so" is making up a shipment but our customer has no idea when it will actually be ready, and so has instructed "so-and-so" to tell us themselves when it is.Other than that, we consider our "contract" to be between ourselves and the shipper. We make the delivery, the shipper pays for it. ...read more