Post Office staff quitting over hard sell

[billyb8]

Post Office staff quitting over hard sell

Tom McGhie, Mail on Sunday

23 March 2008, 12:56pm

Post Office staff under mounting pressure to use 'hard-sell' tactics to offload financial products are becoming sick with stress and leaving the business, insiders have told Financial Mail.

Royal Mail declined to reveal the scale of the exodus, but there is anecdotal evidence that staff at the main post offices are taking increasing amounts of sick leave.

For years, these staff have been offering customers best advice on sending post, but now the pressure to sell currency, travellers' cheques and insurance is starting to take its toll.

Royal Mail has a joint venture with the Bank of Ireland to sell financial products. Post Office sources suggest the impetus for the sales push is coming from the bank.

In Scotland, staff are targeted to sell the Travel Money Card - its new foreign currency card - or travellers' cheques at a ratio of one for every ten transactions. Failure to achieve this leads to questioning by monitoring managers.

One staff member told Financial Mail: 'It is, quite frankly, a terror tactic that has seen many good people leave the business and has resulted in high levels of sickness and absence, due in the main to stress and exhaustion.'

Post Office workers at the Crown Offices are forced to attend sales meetings and a so-called Work Time Learning session.

At these sessions, staff are told to 'play post offices' and use carefully scripted questions designed to sell customers products they may not want. Failure to give the correct response results in the offending staff member being hauled off the counter and taken into an office for 'further development'.

The sessions were described as 'degrading' and difficult for senior members of staff who had 'spent a lifetime helping and serving the public'.

Instead of encouragement for oldstyle service, staff are encouraged to go to sales management meetings, which are quaintly referred to as ' pressure warm-ups, midday updates and warm-downs'.

Financial Mail has already revealed how customers simply wanting to send a letter are being greeted with the inquiry: 'Would you like this to arrive tomorrow?' And if the answer is yes, they are encouraged to spend £4.30 for a special delivery service.

This tactic is being used even though 98% of first-class mail arrives the next day.

Royal Mail said: 'The Post Office's Crown network is losing £70m a year, not least because of a decline in traditional Government business.

'We're seeking to provide great value-for-money financial services and products with the best possible customer service and the more we succeed in cutting losses, the better placed we are to sustain the branch network nationwide.'

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/artic ... topstories

[pinstripe]

Where's our old friend Armani? This was his type of thing. Now even the public are fed up with the hard-sell when they only want a stamp. That is, of course if they can still find a post office.

[DirtyHarry]

Message to Post Office Ltd, from DirtyHarry.

The "hard sell", is regarded by staff and public alike, to be a right load of shite, repeat, a right load of shite, do you read me, over.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

I wonder if anyone has done a study into if they are driving customers away with the hard sell approach. I suspect they are because members of my family now refuse to go to to the town center PO and will travel to outlying ones if they can't get what they need at the local PO, all because of the hard sell approach.

[rhino49]

Where's our old friend Armani? This was his type of thing. Now even the public are fed up with the hard-sell when they only want a stamp. That is, of course if they can still find a post office.

What do you mean "where is Armani"? - by now he will be one of the prats putting the pressure on the staff - which is why doing his nightly comedy spot on here is now beneath him. Or maybe he just decided to be himself and got flushed away.

[squeaky]

Have you seen the latest edition of focus - it contains an article on what the remaining offices will look like - lots of red seats for use while waiting for a 'FSS', selfserve postage booths or take a ticket and wait with the rest for the 2 remaining clerks actually on the counter1 (seen the latest LTB on duties - 2 on counter - everyone else wandering around flogging stuff cos those at advanced level have to queue host or chose a product to specialize in!

I'm being made redundant v v soon

[Stormproof]

Whats these selfserve postage booths like? I think thats what they've got planned for Callers Offices

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Have you seen the latest edition of focus - it contains an article on what the remaining offices will look like - lots of red seats for use while waiting for a 'FSS', selfserve postage booths or take a ticket and wait with the rest for the 2 remaining clerks actually on the counter1 (seen the latest LTB on duties - 2 on counter - everyone else wandering around flogging stuff cos those at advanced level have to queue host or chose a product to specialize in!

I'm being made redundant v v soon

Become a postie we are still fighting the good fight in some places.

[norbert]

I wonder if anyone has done a study into if they are driving customers away with the hard sell approach. I suspect they are because members of my family now refuse to go to to the town center PO and will travel to outlying ones if they can't get what they need at the local PO, all because of the hard sell approach.

they haven't got the time to be high pressure salesmen at the SPO , they just serve people .

I sympathize seen it in another service , the orders were that there had to be a market thrust , some of the idiots in charge ; most of them certainly did want "thrusting " with their half baked +hare brained ideas . No place for people who we'rnt committed or negative -saner people have been locked up going by the lunatics running the ayslum .

They'll lose a lot of good experienced staff , and yes it's a good point about some of our old Post Modernist on line comedians like Armani , Margie and Alf Garnett's love child that has thankfully recently disappeared.

[pinstripe]

The problem facing the post offices is that we, and by that I mean the general public, want what we had. We don't want car insurance, only a stamp. We don't want a mortgage, we want to post a parcel, or pay a bill. We are customers using a public service. We don't need a public address system saying "Cashier number 2 please," when we can see, when we reach the front of the queue that cashier number 2 is free. What we have now is fewer post offices being forced to make a profit to justify their existence, we have unmotivated staff clock watching, we have customer complaints that are ignored at best, and all for the sake of profit. I know that branches need to be profitable these days, but why is that? The post office is losing £4million a week according to Gordon Brown, but how many years ago was it that RMG made £250 million + profit (I know we are seperate from PO now, but who's idea was that?)

The answers to my questions are quite simply that it is down to government and gross mis-management of what should still be a public service. It is a waste of public money to pay RM/PO senior managers outrageous salaries and bonuses to oversee the destruction of our services. Only 20 years ago no one would have allowed this to happen, but then came the great British sell off, anything that wasn't nailed down and some that were, were privatised to raise money for the public purse. The long term consequences were ignored and now the only industry left is us and local government. How long before you are paying council tax to some dodgey 'company' headed by Sir Alan Leighton or Lord Crozier?

[baldrick]

Where's our old friend Armani? This was his type of thing. Now even the public are fed up with the hard-sell when they only want a stamp. That is, of course if they can still find a post office.

What do you mean "where is Armani"? - by now he will be one of the prats putting the pressure on the staff - which is why doing his nightly comedy spot on here is now beneath him. Or maybe he just decided to be himself and got flushed away.

Or he's become sick with stress, or left the business.

[pinstripe]

Where's our old friend Armani? This was his type of thing. Now even the public are fed up with the hard-sell when they only want a stamp. That is, of course if they can still find a post office.

What do you mean "where is Armani"? - by now he will be one of the prats putting the pressure on the staff - which is why doing his nightly comedy spot on here is now beneath him. Or maybe he just decided to be himself and got flushed away.

Or he's become sick with stress, or left the business.

Or he's found a more rewarding career as a traffic warden

[norbert]

Where's our old friend Armani? This was his type of thing. Now even the public are fed up with the hard-sell when they only want a stamp. That is, of course if they can still find a post office.

What do you mean "where is Armani"? - by now he will be one of the prats putting the pressure on the staff - which is why doing his nightly comedy spot on here is now beneath him. Or maybe he just decided to be himself and got flushed away.

Or he's become sick with stress, or left the business.

Or he's found a more rewarding career as a traffic warden

plenty of "challenging " & confrontational situations for him then !, hope his health insurance is up to date

[billyhayes]

Does anyone have a scan of this LTB about duties as I am on AL and have not seen it yet.

Or a link, (I have tried on many occasions to log into CWU site to get at the LTBs but it just wont accept my member no. even with the double zeros!)