L Hunt & Sons

“Qargo has made a massive difference to our operations. It’s a fantastic system, backed by a great company, and I couldn’t be happier with it.”

— Sarah Hunt, Operations Manager, L Hunt & Sons

About L Hunt & Sons 

L Hunt & Sons is a fourth-generation, family-run haulage, storage and specialist transport  company running since 1896, based in Basingstoke. With a reputation built on trust, reliability and personal service, the business handles a wide range of transport jobs, from palletised pharmaceuticals to complex abnormal loads requiring escort vehicles.

“Our clients get a very personalised service,” says Operations Manager Sarah Hunt. “Nine times out of ten, when you ring us, you’re speaking to a member of the immediate family. We take full responsibility from beginning to end.”

But while the company had evolved significantly in the 127 years it’s been running, the technology powering its operations hadn’t. L Hunt & Sons had outgrown its old TMS and needed something smarter, faster and more flexible.

How they found Qargo

Sarah discovered Qargo by chance at the Commercial Vehicle Show. “I was tired, just wandering the stands, and saw the Qargo demo, it looked really intuitive. I thought it’d be out of our budget, but I stopped and watched. I was blown away.”

Onboarding & strong support

“Onboarding was fantastic,” Sarah says. “The testing was clear and structured. Our trainer was brilliant, and Lee (Qargo’s Regional Onboarding  Manager) came onsite to get us fully up and running. By day two, we were confident”. Even team members with decades of experience picked Qargo up quickly.

“Everyone kept asking: is that it? Is that all we have to do? It’s that intuitive.”

Qargo’s support team, including the live chat and help centre, also impressed: “I’m one of those people who forgets how to do things if it’s not daily. Being able to ask a quick question in the chat and get an answer instantly is a game changer.”

The challenge

Before switching to Qargo, the TMS that had once served L Hunt & Sons well became increasingly difficult to use.

Their previous system had become rigid and time-consuming: “We were asking for developments and nothing was happening, or it would come with a big price tag.”

“Only two of us could use it, and it was eating up so much of my time that balancing work and study became nearly impossible – I was working toward a university degree at the time, and without switching systems, I genuinely don’t think I could have completed it.”

The system wasn’t evolving in the direction they needed. Support for bespoke workflows was limited, development was slow and expensive, and real-time updates to drivers were clunky at best.

“We’re not a pallet network. We needed flexibility. And that system just wasn’t keeping up anymore.”

The solution

For Sarah, Qargo wasn’t just a better system, it was a necessity in an industry under growing pressure.

With rising costs, driver shortages and increasing regulatory demands, time is tighter than ever.

“Implementing Qargo gave me back time I didn’t have,” she says. “Without it, I honestly don’t think I’d have been able to finish my degree.”

With Qargo in place, the everyday running of the transport office became smoother and less stressful. Creating orders no longer meant hours of manual input, Sarah simply dragged emails into Qargo and let the intelligent platform do the rest. Invoices and PODs could be tailored exactly to each customer’s requirements, and everything, from contracts to documents to job updates, flowed through the system automatically thanks to Qargo Intelligence.

Updates for drivers, which used to be frustratingly slow and annoyingly unreliable, now happened in real time. Routes, documents and instructions were pushed instantly through the mobile driver app. And thanks to AI-powered address lookup, job details were clearer and more accurate than ever.

After all, in a demanding, high-trust industry like specialist haulage, automation, accuracy, and responsiveness aren’t optional, they’re essential.

Qargo has helped L Hunt & Sons streamline operations without losing the personal touch. It’s given their team more time, more visibility, and the space to focus on what matters most: delivering for their customers. And personally, for Sarah, Qargo provided the space, and time, to study & complete her full university degree.

“It’s not just a good system. It’s a company that listens. The platform is always evolving & we’re benefiting from every update.”

Integrations

L Hunt & Sons integrated Qargo with:

• Webfleet (for real-time driver tracking and location insights)
• QuickBooks (for accounting, following a more complex integration process that was fully supported and eventually resolved)
  

“Webfleet was seamless. QuickBooks took longer, but I was kept updated the whole time. Qargo gave me a workaround, kept trying solutions, and fixed it completely.”

The results

Qargo’s flexibility and ease of use were the biggest wins for L Hunt & Sons.

✅ 15+ hours saved per week on admin and manual processes. Especially Sarah’s favourite, the email drag-and-drop for order creation (powered by Qargo Intelligence) which has dramatically cut admin time.
✅ Increased customer satisfaction through real-time updates and customised workflows and documentation.
✅ Greater team productivity, which ultimately enabled Sarah to complete a full university degree alongside her role.
✅ Improved collaboration with subcontractors, who are now starting to use Qargo’s subcontractor  portal. 

“When the drivers don’t complain, you know it’s working. They love it. And that email-to-order creation feature? It’s phenomenal.”

Final thoughts

“Do it. Do it immediately,” Sarah says to any transport & logistics teams considering switching systems. “Qargo has made a massive difference to our operations. It’s a fantastic system backed by a great company, and I couldn’t be happier with it.”