Given my father worked for the Royal Mail for over thirty years, and that I spent 3-4 months in the summer of 1992 delivering post to the residents of Wells, you might think I feel a soft spot for the Post Office/Royal Mail (I use the term interchangeably, but am referring to the public postal service) , but the last few years has seen my sympathy slowly evaporate. The events of the last few days have left me feeling incredibly frustrated.
I’ve been following Roger Darlingtons experiences as a member of PostWatch with interest, because his experiences seem to well reflect the problems with the Post Office. On the one hand, costs are spiralling and Something Needs To Be Done. But nobody – especially the (local) media driven scrum that is public opinion seems to object to the only realistic options on the table: Close post offices because people aren’t using them, and when they do, they’re low-value transactions that don’t make for a viable business, so need subsidies… But we’re (rightly) no longer prepared to support them from the public purse. That PostWatch takes a pragmatic view is a Very Good Thing (in my view), but it’s a thankless task.
Here’s where the polemic kicks in: Plus the customer experience is very much at the bottom of the heap of priorities in every encounter I’ve had with the Post Office in the last year, and frankly, I’ve had enough.
My most recent experience is that I ordered some more memory for my computer from Crucial, who incidentally are based just down the road in East Kilbride. Delays in their dispatching meant the package didn’t “dispatch” until late on Thursday evening (which meant it was ready to be collected by the postman). But there was a national postal strike on Friday. Workers are clearly entitled to strike, but I can’t sympathise with them in this case. The impression (no doubt simplistic, but it fits with my wider experiences) is that there is a refusal to modernise within the workforce, so they are striking. Linking pay to modernisation steps seems (to me) a sensible move, but the unions seem to take the view it is a threat to jobs. Why is ‘Modernise’ now seen as a synonym for ‘Redundancies’?
Back to my package. So it got picked up on Saturday, and delivered to me yesterday. By the regular postman. In all of this, the regular local postman here is the one part of the Royal Mail that I can’t complain about. He’s prompt, cheerful, polite. I like him. I try to chat to him when I can, so I like to think he likes me. It’s a picture of civility. At least I don’t have dogs or geese or an overgrown garden, rude children or a small/dangerous letterbox – all things I know postmen have good reason to hate.
So my package was delayed a day by the strike. Not a hugely big deal, and more a problem with Crucial who took 36 hours to process my order when they had it in stock and could have turned it around sooner. But that snapping sound in my head, that was my patience snapping, occurred yesterday when I went to post some letters. “Bank Holiday” read the tag in the postbox (Oh, they’ve changed it, I thought first of all). Then, Eh? Of course, yesterday was Glasgow Fair Monday, so it seems there was no normal collection. Grrr. So I’d posted the items and they’re still (as of writing) sat there.
But here I realised that of course there was no collection on Sunday, a limited early collection on Saturday, a strike on Friday. So the last ‘proper’ collection was Thursday last week. And here it was that I came to the realisation that customer service is right at the bottom of the pile, for the holidays and time-off seem to be higher up the priority list than customer service. Strikes conveniently close to weekends, much less bank holiday weekends in Glasgow, and running limited collection services over a protracted period of time. Throw in the inconsistency of actually had a full delivery service on a bank holiday, plus the usual delays, limited staff at counters, and it all really gets to me.
Until the Post Office/Royal Mail staff realise that they have to start put customers first (and certainly stop treating them as cattle who can be held to ransom when they strike: It is us that feel the brunt), I’m afraid I’m past caring about their cause – most certainly pay related issues. Inflation and low wages are certainly problems, but their seeming recalcitrance against improvements in both business efficiency and customer service won’t win them friends with the wider public.
Quite literally, if I had a choice of who would process and post my mail, I’d have taken my business elsewhere long ago. But I would like to keep my local postman please.
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July 28th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Amen, my friend. I too am sick of the post office.
Just today, I needed to get my car tax renewed, so I drive up to the nearest post office, and lo and behold! It’s closed! At 1:30pm on a Saturday! It doesn’t open again until Monday morning now.
For those of us who, you know, have to work for a living, it seems impossible to find an open post office. They open after I have to be in work, and they close way before it’s feasible for me to get to one after work.
The only option is Saturday mornings, to queue for hours along with all the other miserable people who are in the same situation as me. Sigh.
August 1st, 2007 at 12:04 am
Good evening. I have read your Royal Snail comments with interest…. !!
I have now worked for this joke of a company for 3 years. I am building my own business at the moment, but am dependant on the employment of R.M. whilst my web business develops.
I have to strongly dissagree that us employee’s have no respect for customer service or satisfaction. We are tied to the grindstone – money is being spent left right and centre – but not, in my opinion, where it should.
If you think £500,000 on signs in each mail centre, just to let “us” know where equipment should be kept, or £5000 on plasma T.V.’s to let Mr Leighton (yet another spelling ) dictate to us is a good thing – then that is fine.
Please understand though, that firstly we really do not wish to strike at all, and it is not just about a pathetic pay rise.
We are run by an out of touch group of managers who have no respect for the workforce. (We) really want to provide a serious & competative mail operation, and retain one of the U.K.’s longest running services, but it is being destroyed. Please do not blame us – blame Mr Brown and his flock. Have a think about why your mail is not being delivered for a few days, and have a think about your local farming community – if there still is one…………………..
Hello to all “On Mendip” and would enjoy continuing over some Butcombe or a gallon or two of cider.
August 1st, 2007 at 10:45 pm
The reply by Simon House says it all. We don’t want to hold anyone to ransom, for me it definitely isn’t about money. It is about the destruction of the service by a bunch of incompetents. Starting with the Government, Allan Leighton and Adam Crozier (worst of the lot) the regulator and the consumers body. The people of this country are being manipulated into thinking that the Royal Mail needs replacing with a privatised organisation to run it’s Postal services (remember Railtrack !). I suppose when people are having to visit their local DHL or TNT depot to collect their mail or WH Smith for counter services then they will realise whats happening.
HOW TO PRIVATISE THE POST OFFICE…
Remove Investment – Not only during the Thatcher years was the Post Office contributing £1M a day to help keep your income tax down, which by the way was our pension money. Since then the Post Office has been prevented from investing in the equipment it needs.
Remove trust – C4 Dispatches programme + others, some truth but much of it false and very definitely exaggerated.
Introduce unfair competition – The Post Office is not allowed to compete on a level playing field and won’t be until such time as the competition has a major part of the share of the market, sadly th Management of the Royal Mail is extremely compliant with this and makes no attempt to compete at all.
Demoralise and casualise workforce – In order to make the business more palatable for potential buyers that need to pay their shareholders. This is what the Royal Mail is trying to achieve now and the strikes are a reaction to it.
August 7th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Interesting to read Mark’s July comments – a year ago my wife and I were in the middle of a transaction to post a parcel at our local one man Post Office, when the person serving just put up a closed notice and said it was time for his lunch break!
More infuriating is the amount of times recently I have had to make a 20 minute round trip to my local sorting office to pick up undelivered post due to incorrect postage. The first time was because a high street bank had franked a letter 1p short (apparently they had no idea postage charges had increased) – this cost me £1.02, and a lot of hassle.
Yesterday I had to make the trip again to collect a Birthday card which despited having a first class stamp, fitted through the template, and only weighed 10grms – was rejected, I was charged £1.06 for the priveledge. I have yet to find out why it was rejected, as the extremely objectionable person serving had no idea, and would not even discuss it with me.
I have now decided that all my future business invoicing will be sent via E-mail thus depriving the Royal Mail of my revenue .