Firms demand better postal deliveries

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.harrogateadvertiser.net/harr ... 3995382.jp

HARROGATE businesses this week claimed Royal Mail has lost sight of its customers' needs and "totally underestimated" the effect its unreliable service was having on the local economy.

The accusations were made at a meeting held at the Ackrill Media Group offices in Cardale Park, Harrogate, on Tuesday which was chaired by editor Jean MacQuarrie.

Representatives of Harrogate's business community called for a reliable service with regular delivery times.
Brian Dunsby, chief executive of Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce, said all businesses in the town needed a reliable 9am delivery service to allow them to process and act on the day's correspondence within the normal working day.

"A wide range of businesses are being seriously affected by the late delivery of mail," he told the meeting.

"Harrogate is a professional services town and it needs a professional postal service."

Ralph Zoing, of wealth management business Marshall Zoing Ltd, based on Victoria Avenue, said that although there had been a slight improvement in mail delivery services in recent weeks the service was still unreliable and arrived at different times from one day to the next.

He said the time-critical nature of investments meant it was important for documentation to arrive promptly.
"There are days when we receive mail shortly after 10am but even that is too late for us and there are days when it doesn't arrive until after 12."
Sebastian Rowe, of the Broker Network, said his company was one of the top 10 in Harrogate in terms of volume of mail received and staffed its post room from 8.30am to cope with the workload. Late deliveries meant staff were unable to start sorting post until later and all aspects of the business had suffered as a result.

Broker Network now pays £10 a day to receive its mail at 8.30am but this service had not run smoothly either. Mr Rowe said frequent phone calls had been made by his company to Royal Mail to sort out problems, which included mail not arriving at all or only half of it arriving on time and the rest being left until the following day.

The meeting highlighted a simple wish list from Harrogate businesses. Firstly, they wanted a reliable delivery service with mail arriving at the same time each day. Secondly, they wanted their mail to arrive by 9am to give them chance to process it during the working day and ensuring important items were received at the start of the day.

The Harrogate Advertiser contacted Royal Mail with comments from the meeting and the Harrogate business wish list.
But Royal Mail insisted the situation was unlikely to improve.

In a statement to the Harrogate Advertiser a spokesman for Royal Mail said mail for the Harrogate postcode area was sorted in Leeds and final mail did not arrive at the Harrogate delivery office until 9.45am each day.

He brushed off criticism that Harrogate businesses were suffering severe disruption as a result of the late deliveries, reiterating that the Royal Mail was under no obligation to make deliveries at a specific time.

"Royal Mail's delivery obligations are agreed with our regulator, Postcomm," he said, adding the previously stated response that customers could pay for a timed delivery or collect their mail from the delivery office themselves after 8.30am.

"Our postmen and women in Harrogate are working extremely hard to ensure we meet the needs of all our customers. We cannot, however, guarantee the same delivery times each day, due to the fluctuating volumes," the spokesman added.

[norbert]

Firms are paying £10 per day to get their mail before 0830 but if that doesn't happen RM is under no obligation to make deliveries at a specific time and it's OK that you get half of what you've paid for the day after ?? !!!.Surprised he didn't mention the 56mph vehicles ? , Postcon's fault now ?

I can understand combining 1st & 2nd Delivery with SDD , but it begs the question why are these Mail Centres apparently failing and/ or raises questions about logistics , distribution and " Our New "Way of Working " . Little joined up thinking issue perhaps ?

Right I'll do my Auctions on Ebay , take the payments , not bother to go to the Post Office to post my packets , and relist the auctioned items again and see how far that gets me .

[Darren Bent]

If business want to make service better they have reduce unnecessary junk mail they send and receive ie useless trade magazine and crap advertising literature. But they wouldn't so we all suffer from workload and slow post.

Maybe the way forward is to split up normal post and Downstream/advertising into twice a week service ie Monday and Thursday.

[norbert]

If business want to make service better they have reduce unnecessary junk mail they send and receive ie useless trade magazine and crap advertising literature. But they wouldn't so we all suffer from workload and slow post.

Maybe the way forward is to split up normal post and Downstream/advertising into twice a week service ie Monday and Thursday.

there was a time that 2C clogged up and /or got mixed up with 1C slowed everything down , Processing were not bothered as they could fiddle the figures by sending 2C hours early but as you say it's got a lot worse .

I've spoken to people who've worked for Parcelforce and other couriers and they've never known anything as badly geared as RM .Translate workflow problems into crisis / panic mode which RM excel at and slash and burn .

[Toby Tyke]

The firm my wife works for have similar problems.They used to get post by 9am.They had two part time staff working mornings to sort the post.
Now they have to pay £200 a month for a timed delivery(8.30am) sadly they tend to get more post on the second run (10.30 onwards) than on the timed delivery.
After complaining several times they have just recieved a letter telling them the cost of the timed delivery is going up to £250.
They have now cancelled the timed delivery and are looking to ditch royal mail as soon as poss.
The postage budget for the firm this year is £130,000 to £150,000.
Is ours the only customer based firm which puts the customers wishes last ?
Keep pissing the customers off you end up with no customers even I can see that.

[DGP1]

The firm my wife works for have similar problems.They used to get post by 9am.They had two part time staff working mornings to sort the post.
Now they have to pay £200 a month for a timed delivery(8.30am) sadly they tend to get more post on the second run (10.30 onwards) than on the timed delivery.
After complaining several times they have just recieved a letter telling them the cost of the timed delivery is going up to £250.
They have now cancelled the timed delivery and are looking to ditch royal mail as soon as poss.
The postage budget for the firm this year is £130,000 to £150,000.
Is ours the only customer based firm which puts the customers wishes last ?
Keep pissing the customers off you end up with no customers even I can see that.

They're not spending enough, all :cfo :lfo are interested in is the top 10 posters (big banks etc.) Fozzie can bring you up to speed if you pm him but I'm sure he'll post something on it.

[norbert]

The firm my wife works for have similar problems.They used to get post by 9am.They had two part time staff working mornings to sort the post.
Now they have to pay £200 a month for a timed delivery(8.30am) sadly they tend to get more post on the second run (10.30 onwards) than on the timed delivery.
After complaining several times they have just received a letter telling them the cost of the timed delivery is going up to £250.
They have now cancelled the timed delivery and are looking to ditch royal mail as soon as poss.
The postage budget for the firm this year is £130,000 to £150,000.
Is ours the only customer based firm which puts the customers wishes last ?
Keep pissing the customers off you end up with no customers even I can see that.

They're not spending enough, all :cfo :lfo are interested in is the top 10 posters (big banks etc.) Fozzie can bring you up to speed if you pm him but I'm sure he'll post something on it.

Brown brought in The Shareholder Executive to " better fulfil ( the government's ) role as shareholder of the 25 publicly owned companies like Royal Mail . It's target , on which the bosses bonuses depended on was to increase the value of the six largest companies by £1 billion by 2007.

You can forget any notions of public service to "Auntie Joan " and comparatively smaller businesses , the men brought in for the job were led by ex CFSB Investment Banker Richard Gillingham and now Deutsche Bank Analyst Stephen Lovegrove hit their targets .There's links to Enron and their " little problems " now .

There was the mandatory but legal "creative accounting " boosting of financial but not service results by the installation of Executive Managers like our beloved L&C on multi million pound bonuses for boosting profits without penalty for service shortcomings .

Of course Big Al favours the top bank customers , he's not going to kill the goose that lays the golden egg and he may require their services like a vulture waiting in the wings .

The Shareholder Executive also advise New Labour's bungling Ministers and civil servants that Brown has no control over, so Dead End Street SPO and 2,499 others will be on the list

[gazzer]

"Sebastian Rowe, of the Broker Network, said his company was one of the top 10 in Harrogate in terms of volume of mail received and staffed its post room from 8.30am to cope with the workload. Late deliveries meant staff were unable to start sorting post until later and all aspects of the business had suffered as a result"

They obviously need to be more flexible,havent they heard of "LONGS AND SHORTS"

[DGP1]

"Sebastian Rowe, of the Broker Network, said his company was one of the top 10 in Harrogate in terms of volume of mail received and staffed its post room from 8.30am to cope with the workload. Late deliveries meant staff were unable to start sorting post until later and all aspects of the business had suffered as a result"

They obviously need to be more flexible,havent they heard of "LONGS AND SHORTS"

He could always tell his staff to start 2 hours later and if they complain then just blame it on the EU.

[F0zziebear]

1. Being in the Top10 in Harrogate in terms of volume of mail recived does not necessarily mean you are a Top10 customer of RoyalMail in Harrogate. Remember this is an industry where the sender pays, which is what Leighton has been trying to get across for time. Because of this joe public are not necessarily at the forefront in terms of customer satisfaction. However, if a recipient is not getting their mail and cannot do business then the sender will eventually find out and not be happy with Royal Mail.

2. Royal Mail's system is going through numerous changes. The 56mph obviously has an impact. Unfortunately Royal Mail has not got a world class project management structure in place. So projects such as the requirement to put in place the 56mph EU regulation was not properly risk assessment, and if it was completely risk assessed then they decided to push ahead with the project, and it's consequences became acceptable. Knowing RM as I do they would not have seen this as a project, and therefore did not manage it in this way.

3. Royal Mail has focused it's attentions on the Top100 customers because they pay for the majority of the mail, and many functions such as marketing and sales are aligned to deliver this.

4. £150k per annum whilst it may sound like a lot of money relative the big players is quite small. Royal Mail have struggled and still do to reach to SME (Small & Medium Enterprises). It is difficult to extract value from providing these services. Why?
Their postal campaigns are not particularly large and do not provide regular baseload.
Large amounts of unsorted mail, possibly handwritten, franked etc... is not attractive as it costs plenty to sort

I however do sympathise with these companies who pay a fee to get their mail earlier and are not. That is wrong and RM should be offering services they cannot keep to. Adam Crozier for everything you say about him has a mantra of under promising and over delivering. I think he should take a tighter grip of operations from this perspective and I think you would see narrower but better quality operation.

Not sure if that helps, but at least provides some context

[smarterdarter]

"Sebastian Rowe, of the Broker Network, said his company was one of the top 10 in Harrogate in terms of volume of mail received and staffed its post room from 8.30am to cope with the workload. Late deliveries meant staff were unable to start sorting post until later and all aspects of the business had suffered as a result"

They obviously need to be more flexible,havent they heard of "LONGS AND SHORTS"

He could always tell his staff to start 2 hours later and if they complain then just blame it on the EU.

Or make them part time and follow RM'S idea on flexability

[Toby Tyke]

1. Being in the Top10 in Harrogate in terms of volume of mail recived does not necessarily mean you are a Top10 customer of RoyalMail in Harrogate. Remember this is an industry where the sender pays, which is what Leighton has been trying to get across for time. Because of this joe public are not necessarily at the forefront in terms of customer satisfaction. However, if a recipient is not getting their mail and cannot do business then the sender will eventually find out and not be happy with Royal Mail.

2. Royal Mail's system is going through numerous changes. The 56mph obviously has an impact. Unfortunately Royal Mail has not got a world class project management structure in place. So projects such as the requirement to put in place the 56mph EU regulation was not properly risk assessment, and if it was completely risk assessed then they decided to push ahead with the project, and it's consequences became acceptable. Knowing RM as I do they would not have seen this as a project, and therefore did not manage it in this way.

3. Royal Mail has focused it's attentions on the Top100 customers because they pay for the majority of the mail, and many functions such as marketing and sales are aligned to deliver this.

4. £150k per annum whilst it may sound like a lot of money relative the big players is quite small. Royal Mail have struggled and still do to reach to SME (Small & Medium Enterprises). It is difficult to extract value from providing these services. Why?
Their postal campaigns are not particularly large and do not provide regular baseload.
Large amounts of unsorted mail, possibly handwritten, franked etc... is not attractive as it costs plenty to sort

I however do sympathise with these companies who pay a fee to get their mail earlier and are not. That is wrong and RM should be offering services they cannot keep to. Adam Crozier for everything you say about him has a mantra of under promising and over delivering. I think he should take a tighter grip of operations from this perspective and I think you would see narrower but better quality operation.

Not sure if that helps, but at least provides some context

Ok then.Royal Mail looks after the top 100 customers and stuff all the small people (who then go elsewhere)
Then as normal we get undercut by our competitors and end up with nothing.
I genuinely fear for the future of Royal mail with policies like this.

[F0zziebear]

Sorry to say Toby Jug but at the moment competitors are't that interested in small business either.

The only way to reach small business is via some form of consolidation. This will take the collections over certain volumes and make collecting them worthwhile. There is the possibility of doing this via some unlikely bedfellows. I can't mention more about this without breaching commercial rules. All sounds a bit cheeky monkey but you never know who is on here. If someone wants to pay for such insight then they are welcome to pm me. Thus far no-one has and from what I can tell these foolish companies are wasting millions where others have already trodden.

It's not that RM are intentionally not trying to reach small business, but economically there are not very good. Their posting profiles are not generally consistent, their volumes are not that reliable, lots of unconsolidated mail. Of this means that RM cannot predict their volumes so easily and efficiently design their system to meet this. Much easier to design your business around big business who provide the largest and most reliable volumes.

Don't lose hope as there is no-one even remotely ready to take away great swathes of SME business. This ultimately means that your friends in Harrogate have nowhere to return to at the moment.

Having said on this I know that senior figures in marketing are and will be looking to reach this part of the market place via new products

[Toby Tyke]

Scarey.Very,very scarey.
Sad you feel the need to try and belittle me on the name thing.
"Toby Jug"

[greynut]

But can some one tell me how these to quotes make sense?

In a statement to the Harrogate Advertiser a spokesman for Royal Mail said mail for the Harrogate postcode area was sorted in Leeds and final mail did not arrive at the Harrogate delivery office until 9.45 each day.

Royal Mail's delivery obligations are agreed with our regulator, Postcomm," he said, adding the previously stated response that customers could pay for a timed delivery or collect their mail from the delivery office themselves after 8.30am.

How can you collect mail anytime after 8.30am if it doesn t arrive untill 9.45am each day. What am I missing here?

Problem is, that these later start times and working till end time has NOTHING to do with customer service or the unbelievable claims regarding european speed laws.

It was Crozier and Leighton f****d off with seeing posties finish early. Nothing more nothing less.

But dont forget we agreed to this (majority vote, before you all post "I DIDN'T") all for an inflation matching pay rise. Nice one.