Nigel Rice Transport & Storage 

About Nigel Rice Transport

Based in East Yorkshire, Nigel Rice Transport & Storage has been serving the region for many years, offering general haulage nationwide alongside a pallet network service along the east coast of the UK, a Hazchem service, and storage and warehouse facilities.

The business positions itself as a premium, boutique operator, putting customer relationships front and centre. “We basically make customer service a priority, ensuring that we deliver a good service to all our customers,” says Jon Herring, Business Development Manager.

That personal touch runs through everything the team does — from weekly check-in calls to understanding how each customer’s own business is performing. “We try to understand our customers’ needs and what they are doing in terms of the sector they are working in… so we can tailor our transport operations to fit their operational goals.”

Having come from a large corporate background, Jon says the family-run structure at Nigel Rice Transport is deliberate. “We want to keep it as a family-operated business, but with a high-standard boutique service.” Growth, he says, is steady and forecasted rather than rushed — a reflection of how tight resources are across the transport industry.

How They Found Qargo

Nigel Rice Transport were true early adopters, going live with Qargo in February 2024 when Qargo had only a handful of transport company customers. Previously running with another TMS, the business was looking for a platform that could flex and grow alongside them, rather than a rigid, one-size-fits-all system.

“There are a lot of TMS systems out there that are just, this is it, this is what you do. But Qargo was a little bit more flexible,” Jon explains. “We wanted Qargo to grow with us.”

That partnership approach has defined the relationship ever since: “We’re having some problems in this area, so we can bring it to Qargo and say, right, can you have a look at this? Can you improve it? And they come back to us with results.”

The Challenge

Before Qargo, the business was contending with a fragmented set of tools and processes. Financial reporting, trip reporting and the customer booking experience were all difficult to get transparency on, and planning — particularly forecasting network volumes — was a persistent pain point.

“It was quite fragmented,” Jon says. Integration gaps with partners like Palletline, alongside slow, disconnected PODs and ePODs, meant admin regularly spilled over: “obviously invoicing sometimes was late,… but most of it was mainly the planning side of it, mainly predicting the volumes to the networks.”

The Solution

Since going live, Nigel Rice Transport has used Qargo to bring planning, invoicing and network operations into one place. Jon points to the planning side — visibility over collections and deliveries — as the single biggest improvement, alongside stronger reporting and invoicing.

The Qargo customer portal has also been a hit with their own customers, who’ve responded well to being able to rebook jobs and view their dashboard directly. “It was good for the customer side… they just adapted very well.”

The team also uses Qargo Intelligence day to day, including AI-assisted lookups for jobs and customer service queries — with a clear route to a human when needed. 

Integrations

Nigel Rice Transport currently integrates Qargo with:

• Palletline — for pallet network operations
• Sage — for accounting
• XBO — onboarded in the past year, supported closely by Qargo’s integrations team
• Hazchem network systems

Jon notes that the integration experience has changed markedly since the early days. “In 2024, it was quite challenging… but recently, when we onboarded the XPO integration, it was fine. The support engineer helped.” He adds that Qargo’s engineers give clear, direct answers rather than lengthy back-and-forth: “They just say it can, or it can’t do it. There’s a big difference on the integration side. “

The Onboarding Experience

As one of Qargo’s first customers, Nigel Rice Transport’s original onboarding took place while Qargo itself was still a young company — something Jon is candid about. “We had one person to assist with the onboarding process initially. However, he was new to Qargo at the time, so he was quite unsure of things.” A relatively young, tech-comfortable team helped them get up to speed regardless.

To make sure they weren’t missing out on new functionality, Qargo visited the business for refresher training. “We invited Qargo to visit us last year to conduct some refresher training, update processes, and cover any new features… they came back to us and updated us. They were very friendly.”

Today, the business has a dedicated account manager, Abby, who Jon highlights as central to the relationship. “We know that we have somebody at Qargo… it’s much better. You have that more personal customer service touch.”

The Results

✅ Improved planning accuracy — better visibility over collections and deliveries, with fewer planning errors 

✅ Faster, clearer invoicing — greater visibility for customers over what’s been paid and what hasn’t

✅ Stronger customer satisfaction — customers can see ePODs and electronic signatures directly, rather than calling to check 

✅ Reduced admin pressure — less time spent on routing and administrative back-and-forth 

✅ Better support experience — quicker, more definitive answers from Qargo’s integration and support engineers

“I think customers are much more happy to see those ePODs and signatures instead of calling and asking,” says Jon. “It reduces stress, reduces being overworked, and obviously reduces costs in labour.”

Why It Matters

For a business built on personal relationships and steady, sustainable growth, having a system that removes admin friction — without adding complexity — matters. As Jon puts it, customers today expect transparency by default: “Customers now need more transparency about what’s happening. Where is their freight?”

Next Steps

🚀 Want to see how Qargo can transform your transport operations? Book a Demo