Royal Mail Quality of service Q4 2019 2020 impacted by Coronavirus

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It’s hard not to feel a bit sorry today for Royal Mail, as the Royal Mail Quality of service Q4 2019 2020 was published just before the weekend. The coronavirus hit them hard and whereas they traditionally spend all year planning for Christmas (and indeed Ofcom does not include the Christmas period in Royal Mail’s annual Quality of Service measurement), the pandemic increased mail volumes way above peak levels with no time to prepare.

Anecdotally, at the start of the pandemic I had one parcel which took 15 days to arrive, but in general Royal Mail appear, at least in my area, to have recovered and now letters and parcels appear to be arriving like clockwork in time scales you’d expect at more normal times or with delays no more than a day or two.

The result of unprecedented demand is that during the fourth quarter of the year, Royal Mail’s First Class performance was 93.2% (excluding coronavirus). However, including the impact of coronavirus Royal Mail’s First Class performance for the same period was 91.6%.

It’s worth digging a little deeper into this, the past four year’s fourth quarter performance from 2017 to 2020 has been 93.10%, 88.80%, 92.00%, and now 91.60% which average out at 91.375%. Even with the impact of coronavirus Royal Mail’s performance is above average for the past four years this last quarter. It’s also worth noting that Royal Mail missed their First Class performance target for seven quarters in a row, before they exceeded it for two quarters and then dipped below again in the past two quarters. Despite the pandemic which has had an obvious impact, this year has seen Royal Mail increase it’s performance compared to recent years.

The Royal Mail Quality of service Q4 2019 2020 reports that the business exceeded their Second Class target of 98.% of mail delivered on time achieving 98.7%.

Royal Mail Quality of service Q4 2019 2020 full year results
Royal Mail missed its annual regulatory target for First Class mail, delivering 92.6 per cent the next working day, against a target of 93.0 per cent. The Company notes that the full year outcome for First Class mail was significantly impacted by the coronavirus crisis. This led to high levels of coronavirus-related absences during the tail end of the 2019-20 financial year. Up until the 15th of March, Royal Mail was meeting its First Class target for the full year with a performance of 93.0%.

Royal Mail believes that, if the 2019-20 performance was adjusted to take into account the impact of coronavirus, the Royal Mail Quality of service Q4 2019 2020 full year results would have hit their First Class target. Royal Mail is asking Ofcom to take these issues into consideration. It will be for Ofcom to decide.

Royal Mail has exceeded its annual regulatory target of 98.5 per cent for Second Class mail, delivering 98.7 per cent of mail within three working days.