Forum Moderators: buckworks
At the moment they are managing to lose about 10% of our ppi mail. This has been going on since February this year.
Royal Mail put test items in with our mail in April and over a 10 day period 10% went missing also.
Whilst we can claim the cost price of the items back from Royal Mail eventually, it alienates customers and makes our company look unprofessional.
We also now have to have two employees tied up with delivery phone calls and emails every day.
Is anybody else having the same nightmare? Is there any other carrier that is as cheap as Royal Mail for low value light items?
Thats what the government wants us to think. We are all at their mercy. I have sent my MP an email today asking him to raise the issue at PMQs.
Will let you know of any developments
'comon comrades get your placards out! Hands off teh the RM.
USPS Will Let Royal Mail Contract Expire
[dmnews.com...]
Though the [Royal Mail] partnership lets the USPS use a single point of contact for Europe, soon after the agreement was signed, the postal service began experiencing problems, including on-time delivery issues and duties and fees that were higher than expected.
We are not only loosing customer goodwill through lost orders, but we have to pay for replacements, and our shipping costs have now skyrocketed. If the problem is not solved soon (USPS/RM contract), we'll have to re-evaluate our international markets.
teletrnr
My business is located in London SW and includes international mail order to many countries, and of course UK. We send out some 10-15 packets and parcels per day.
In eight years trading only one parcel has been completely lost, and in fact I suspect that the customer did in fact receive it but lied about the matter. There have been some horror stories - one parcel lost in the system for 10 weeks (returned to us eventually after insurance claim had paid out). It has taken parcels 2-3 weeks to travel 50 miles.
But many (indeed most) small packets under 2kgs are delivered to the UK the next day - our customers often phone to congratulate us on the rapid service. We only use recorded or insured delivery in special cases, mostly a new customer with a large order.
in general we have no problems with overseas mail, although delivery times can vary, and only one has ever been lost. It was sent in error to Austria instead of Australia, and reached the addressee after 6 months, after a visit to the USA!
As far as I know our inward mail has been lost only once - when the delivery postman was robbed in broad daylight and his mailbag stolen by hopheads. We are not aware of any other lost inwards post.
Since the single delivery per day was introduced we seem to be getting our mail earlier each morning. Second post was usually not very interesting anyway. One problem seems to be the rather rapid turnover of delivery postmen, with very variable quality of staff. Let's face it, postman is not much of a job, low pay, out in all weathers and so on.
But the claim that each day the Post Office loses millions of letters is, in my view, balderdash. The failure or cock-up rate is probably less than 0.5%, doubtless no higher than many ordinary businesses. You think the Post Office is unreliable? Try the railways!
In short, our experience is that the loss rate for properly addressed and stamped mail is negligible.
If your experience is different you ought to investigate internal reasons why.
mailbag stolen by hopheads
These kids today, with their love beads, mood rings, and crazy folk music!
Talking of claims....
We are just about to submit our claim for lost items to Royal Mail for June 2004. There are 176 individual parcels on the list.
Even our courier lost one in June. First time in 2 years.
100% of the mail sent from my Florida office to my UK office has arrived within 5 days, 100% of the time. Royal Mail Rocks!
However, my Mother, based in the Midlands, says that only 75% of her mail to my sister based in the Southeast arrives (at all) and none of it within 5 days!
I dunno! It appears that International mail is 100% reliable, while domestic UK mail is 25% unreliable. I can't figure that out, the postmen are now only delivering mail with unusual stamps?
The Royal Mail process is automated and relies only on the postcode for sorting and distribution. If the postcode is missing, not printed clearly, or not on a seperate line, there will be delays. That might be the answer to your Mother's problem.
It also depends on whether she is posting First Class or Second Class. Personally I find First Class 100% reliable.
People were taught to indent each line further inward than the previous line (so the left margin looks like it is on a slant).
Now, they want people to write the address with the left margin vertical. This helps with automated machinery that attempts to read the postcode through OCR. Indenting the postcode can cause a longer delay as letters/packets need to be hand sorted through the entire system including the automated parts.
the only packages that have been 'lost' are those where i have reason to doubt the customer's word, but it is cheaper/easier to refund in those rare instances than dispute it.
for international i'd say it rocks too.
for internal uk mail i find it works well too, i just get nothing like the non delivery rates that others seem to be cursed with (thank goodness)
as for privatisation - this will be a disaster, i agree with essex_boy
here is stuff that i do which may be impracticle for others...
always be charming and polite to counter staff (kind of like the same theory as never being rude to a waiter in a restaurant - if you don't know why, remind me never to go out for dinner with you!)
always hand write the addresses - not use printed labels, this is time consuming but at our volume is do-able, i think it makes a difference.
never use branded packaging - eg. boxes or envelopes with "really cool widget company" written on them (that to me is like saying, hey there postie check this package out, could be something worth nicking!)
However I would'nt like to work for them (even before reading RM's post)
What is wrong with printed address labels?
