Missed Delivery Cards

[jrowbotham]

Hi,

Can anyone give advice or tips on the following?

I have an online business and send out a lot of items via 1st class packets.
The items are not valuable, just too big for the letterbox.

The vast majority get delivered quickly without any problems; however a significant number of recipients claim they haven’t received the packet or a missed delivery card.

Usually I send out a replacement, the recipient gets this next day and the original comes back in due course with a “not called for” label. Some are going to flats but the majority aren’t.

Occasionally I have a burst of enthusiasm, find the phone number of the delivery office and ask them to check. The answer is always, “if we had the parcel they would have received a card”. After a bit of begging they usually check and find the parcel. Finding the number and getting through on the phone is always difficult and frustrating.

My suspicion is that some cards don’t get left and the rest end up in the bin with the junk mail.

Anything I can do (without spending money), to make everyone life easier?

Thanks

[fishtank]

My suspicion is that some cards don’t get left and the rest end up in the bin with the junk mail

Probably that and some people lose the cards.
The number of cards not left is unlikely to be significant...there is no reason not to leave a card and the risk of being caught and disciplined is high enough to make a poor career move and unlikely to be deliberate.
Not impossible...but unlikely.

[mazza111]

Have seen the cards being folded in with the door 2 doors, and thrown promptly in the bin. Seen it happening even with posties who I know to do the job properly and know they would have left a red card, but customers swear blind they didn't receive a card.

Have also seen it with flats where they are inaccessible so don't get red carded until postie can get access.

When you get a call from people who claim they haven't received or been carded, it's always wise to get them to check at their local delivery office for the item. It's a 2 minute job and saves you the expense of having to repost another item.

[simmo11]

See this issue quite a lot in my job.

It's a catch-22 situation, though as whilst it could also be the postie that has not carded for whatever reason, with the amount of cr*p (excuse language) that comes through the door with the post these days it is also not unfeasible for customers to mistake them for junk mail and just bin them (although of course this never gets admitted ).

When you get a call from people who claim they haven't received or been carded, it's always wise to get them to check at their local delivery office for the item. It's a 2 minute job and saves you the expense of having to repost another item.

We recommend this as standard; however we are seeing an increasing number of DOs who will not even so much check for a parcel unless the person calling says they have a card. Is this a new policy?

[mazza111]

Personally, I've never heard of a delivery office not checking. And when I worked in the office I would always have a quick scan when the customer was on the phone, if I couldn't find it on first shout, I would take a contact number for customer and tell them I'd call them back, usually telling them I was just about to tidy the parcels when they rang . Always had a good look and called them back. Obviously if they call during the busy morning period they may not be so forthcoming, but I would imagine most of the staff in the offices would look.

Posties not carding is not unheard of, but I believe it's less than people make out. In our old office, if the van driver ran out, then they usually filled in a card the next day and gave it to reg postie to deliver. But I'm not saying it doesn't happen. But I do believe that 9 times out of 10 when the customer says they didn't get a card that it's been binned along with the junk mail.

[TeeferTiger]

I've had people phone up the office when I've been working in there looking for a parcel, me telling them it's there and has been for 2 weeks, them saying they never got a card and me knowing that they bl**dy well did because I delivered the flippin thing!! It could be that someone else in the house picks it up, puts it to one side and it gets binned accidentally, or sometimes on purpose because they don't realise that someone else is expecting something and they think it's a scam.

[jrowbotham]

Personally, I've never heard of a delivery office not checking. And when I worked in the office I would always have a quick scan when the customer was on the phone, if I couldn't find it on first shout, I would take a contact number for customer and tell them I'd call them back, usually telling them I was just about to tidy the parcels when they rang . Always had a good look and called them back. Obviously if they call during the busy morning period they may not be so forthcoming, but I would imagine most of the staff in the offices would look.

My experience of this is, usually an initial reluctance to look, but a "please" will usually get a result.

"Obviously if they call during the busy morning period they may not be so forthcoming"
This sounds interesting, I was under the impression that most delivery offices were only open in the morning, are the phones manned when the counter is closed ?
That would imply it would be easier to get answer on the phone in the afternoon.

Undelivered parcels are kept for a period of time (depending on service) before being returned to sender.
Often wondered why a generic reminder note isn't put through the letter box of the recipient when a parcel has been sitting at the delivery office for a while.
Must be cost effective for Royal Mail to deliver an extra letter than return a parcel across the country ?
Especially in my case as the local postie comes before we open so a returned parcel, always has a missed delivery card and we collect it from our local delivery office.
Wonder what would happen if a "returned not called for" was also "not called for"

[TeeferTiger]

Personally, I've never heard of a delivery office not checking. And when I worked in the office I would always have a quick scan when the customer was on the phone, if I couldn't find it on first shout, I would take a contact number for customer and tell them I'd call them back, usually telling them I was just about to tidy the parcels when they rang . Always had a good look and called them back. Obviously if they call during the busy morning period they may not be so forthcoming, but I would imagine most of the staff in the offices would look.

My experience of this is, usually an initial reluctance to look, but a "please" will usually get a result.

"Obviously if they call during the busy morning period they may not be so forthcoming"
This sounds interesting, I was under the impression that most delivery offices were only open in the morning, are the phones manned when the counter is closed ?
That would imply it would be easier to get answer on the phone in the afternoon.

Undelivered parcels are kept for a period of time (depending on service) before being returned to sender.
Often wondered why a generic reminder note isn't put through the letter box of the recipient when a parcel has been sitting at the delivery office for a while.
Must be cost effective for Royal Mail to deliver an extra letter than return a parcel across the country ?
Especially in my case as the local postie comes before we open so a returned parcel, always has a missed delivery card and we collect it from our local delivery office.
Wonder what would happen if a "returned not called for" was also "not called for"

It would be sent to RLB to be destroyed I imagine.

As for the counter phones being manned when the office is closed. You can try it, you might get lucky... however it depends who answers the phone and whether they have access to the area that stores the parcels. In our office, the phone could be answered from another office on the delivery floor so if you heard the phone ringing, you could answer it without being in the Room of Doom. They might answer the phone in case it's a postie needing assistance i.e. after a break down (emotional or vehicular!) but wouldn't be able to help with anything to do with the callers office. It's usually quite busy in the callers office first thing in the morning, and even before opening, as they're usually the ones sorting everything out for the posties to leave the delivery office (i.e. handing out van keys, the specials etc). Once the posties are all out and the rush of customers that turn up as soon as the shutters open, they have a bit more spare time to go looking for stuff. That's if they're not playing catch up from the morning rush!

[mazza111]

Sorry when I said busier times, normally from 7am - 9.30am. Dealing with giving posties their specials and business customers coming in to collect their mail. Anything from about 10am I've found is when it quietens down a bit. At least that's when I used to grab my smokes and head outside

[TeeferTiger]

Sorry when I said busier times, normally from 7am - 9.30am. Dealing with giving posties their specials and business customers coming in to collect their mail. Anything from about 10am I've found is when it quietens down a bit. At least that's when I used to grab my smokes and head outside

That's when I used to start the deads then!