This is how working with us works – in four simple steps.
Initial contact
Wondering how to order shipping containers, welfare units or temporary site accommodation? It’s as easy as picking up the phone – or dropping us a line, so we can organise a time to give you a call back.
This call is where we’ll field your questions and ask our own to help you make the right choice for your business or service.
Amongst our questions, we’ll ask:
- What you need the container for
- Where it’s going to go on your property
- Whether it will be used for storage, office use, a full site setup or something else entirely
And anything else that comes up during the talk.
Once we’ve got your answers and built a complete picture of what you need, we can then move on to the next phase…
Delivery questionnaire
We then send out a sheet with some questions designed to help with shipping container logistics, letting us understand the layout of your space and how straightforward a process delivery and installation of your unit might be. This is where we can start to get a feel for potential issues that might necessitate some creative thinking on delivery day, and begin forming a plan to get ahead of those if needed!
Free site visit
The next stage sees us go out and have a look at your site. There are often things you wouldn’t expect to present a problem but which might, and we know what to look for to help with shipping container installation and more besides. (We offer everything from empty containers to one modified for a purpose like an office block, and even additional items like toilet blocks and security fencing).
For instance, there could be phone lines or power lines that we risk touching with a particularly tall van or container, or a gate that’s too small, or a turning that offers too tight a turning circle for us to deliver comfortably. Trying to get one of our lorries off a narrow country road can be tricky in those situations!
Thankfully we’ve been doing this a long time, and we’ve developed a number of different creative solutions to different logistical issues.
If we can’t get a lorry in, for instance, we could offer a wheeled unit – which could be an ample alternative if you want an outdoor office space.
In other instances, it might be that a particular size lorry would work, or that there’s no issue at all. We even have the option to skate units into place using casters, where we turn the container unit into sort of a big shopping trolley and manoeuvre it where needed. We used this technique recently on a project in New Alresford, where we delivered a unit that became a production office for a new TV show starring Alan Titchmarsh!
We’ve also encountered many instances where a short conversation reveals an alternative route into a property – like a farm with a rear gate across a field, which the owner didn’t initially think of.
Whatever your location and challenges, our free site visit is an essential part of the process for getting your unit delivered. Which brings us finally to…
Delivery day!
At Philspace, we appreciate the need to be flexible with our delivery times and transparent with our customers throughout the day about when they can expect to see us.
We offer a guaranteed delivery time for the very first job of the day in the morning, so if you really need to know when your shipping container (or other unit!) will arrive, that’s the slot to go for.
In other cases, our drivers (who are fully accredited to top industry safety standards) will give you a call on the day with an update about when to expect your container.
That said, we also appreciate that certain businesses or institutions need deliveries to happen at certain times. For instance, it would be no good for a school if we turned up right at home time, when children are leaving and parents are trying to park to pick them up! That was certainly the case on our job at Swanmore College in September 2020, and we’ve encountered many more like that. We’ll always make every effort to fit our deliveries around such circumstances.
Need help with shipping container ordering?
If you’re looking to order a shipping container but not sure which one you need, or you could simply use some help with shipping container logistics before you commit to an order, we can help.
Take a look at our shipping containers page to get a feel for what we can offer, then get in touch to talk through your options.
