The cost of not delivering first time

[POSTMAN]

https://www.myroyalmail.com/news/nation ... first-time" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Failed online deliveries are expected to cost UK retailers, carriers and consumers £771 million this year.

This includes orders that are not delivered first time, or those that are lost, cancelled or undeliverable and returned.

The IMRG Valuing Home Delivery Review 2014 calculates that ‘on average each failed delivery event adds £0.68 of cost to every delivery made to UK consumers.

‘The development of new solutions must be stepped up in order to keep pace with the rapidly changing demands of the UK’s e-retail consumer.’

Double the cost

In its report, IMRG looked at the cost of not delivering first time across three stakeholder groups – the retailer, the carrier and the customer.

It found that: ‘The total avoidable cost of failed “first-time / on-time delivery” is fairly evenly divided across the three main stakeholder groups but the carriers now shoulder the greatest burden.

‘The carriers’ highest cost scenario is when the delivery fails at the first attempt and has to be re-arranged. We estimate the cost for each occurrence to be £6.53, which is more than double the original charge for an average delivery.’

Inconveniencing our customers

Not delivering first time, every time also costs our customers. The report found that ‘the consumer’s greatest headache remains the collection scenario which takes time and effort and produces a cost per event of almost £11.’

Delivery to Neighbour

This research underlines the importance of first-time delivery, particularly Delivery to Neighbour. When a first-time delivery fails we inconvenience our customers. This means they may take their business elsewhere.

Better for you

Delivering first time, every time means parcels are not returned to your office. It means there are fewer queues outside enquiry offices and it relieves pressure on your office at peak times.

Fewer redelivery requests also leads to fewer redelivery complaints.

Check out our Delivery to Neighbour checklist to boost your first-time delivery rate. Our Courier Special also outlines some key dos and don’ts, and the four ways we can achieve first-time delivery.

http://www.myroyalmail.com/news/2014/07 ... -checklist" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.myroyalmail.com/sites/defaul ... 0A4_v8.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[k979aaa]

All very well IF you have the time.

[PhilPott]

A cost of £6.53 for redelivery - absolute nonsense. Putting the packet back in my bag and then putting it in the van costs me no extra time compared to walking next door, knocking, waiting, handing it over and then returning to the original address and filling out a P739

Once I'm back at the office hen endorsing it and putting it in the right place takes me less than a minute. The packet lying around costs nothing. The actual arranging of a redelivery is a phone call or a few clicks on a webpage. Whoever puts it back out for redelivery must spend all of 1 minute doing it. The actual redelivery is one extra packet on my walk on another date and adds around 2 minutes at most.

Whoever takes the phone call to re-arrange it must be on an astronomical hourly rate for it to be costing £6.53.

And customer collecting produces a cost of £11? Only by using ridiculous and arbitary "worth of time" figures and attaching monetary value to things that actually cost nothing can this figure possibly be arrived at. I often collect parcels from my local depot ( I work elsewhere) and it in no way costs me any real monetary value. Am I then to believe that it costs RM that £11 because it needs to be booked in and lie on a shelf and then someone has to spend all of 30 seconds serving me?

Absolute bollocks.

[OnAFlyer]

It's only September and just on our pair of walks we're already averaging 15-20 739'd packets per day. We try DTN with tracked if we have the time but everything else gets carded.

[fishtank]

Only by using ridiculous and arbitary "worth of time" figures and attaching monetary value to things that actually cost nothing can this figure possibly be arrived at.

What about the neighbour's time?, the time it costs them to come to the door, the time it takes them to put the parcel in that "safe" place under the stairs, the associated storage costs, the time it takes them to hunt everywhere trying to remember where that safe place was again when the original customer finally decides to collect the parcel? Some of my customers are very well paid, let's call it an arbitrary £20...

[PhilPott]

Time costs nothing - it just keeps everything from happening at once.

Some of my customers are Polish immigrants - The average DM reader is probably fuming about them coming over here using up our arbitrarily monetized taxpayers time.

[delboy1969]

Oh its all very silly the noises them above make regarding delivery to neighbour, that propaganda nonsense did give me a jolly good giggle though!

[tansorboy]

I have given up trying. It is always the same people who get the parcels, and the same neighbours who are asked to help, and who are getting increasingly fed up with being asked.

[Sidley]

RM, poncing off the goodwill of the people it used to belong to before it ran like a faithless lover into private hands. Brilliant business model.

[Grinder64]

It's only September and just on our pair of walks we're already averaging 15-20 739'd packets per day. We try DTN with tracked if we have the time but everything else gets carded.

Pretty much our modus operandi, although I'm expecting the tap on the shoulder in the run up to the silly season asking why we're bringing so much back to the office. They'll get the 'security reasons' schtick in much the same manner that they've used 'operational reasons' to justify every bit of skulduggery over the years...

[Kings Norton]

They have p739s wrote out in my Manchester office before they leave with NO intentions of delivering the item, this is why some of these runners are back a hour and a half before their time. They don't care about the business only themselves!

[Dozen]

Article should have been titled: "The cost of not applying common sense"

I'll happily take the time to try and get our customer's parcels delivered. Royal Mail have given me 8 hours in a day to work. If the time added on by trying the neighbours for all parcels, and the combined heavy workload, both contribute towards me having to cut off a loop or two from my walk - then so be it. Not bothered because either way i'm working my hours all the same.

But i'll use my common sense depending on the situation. Rural deliveries where the nearest neighbour is located down a long and winding dirt road, hmm think i'll leave a card. Inner city duties in areas where people really don't trust their neighbours much. Streets where every household seems to speak a different language, and international students and migrant workers who come and go at short notice. Leave a card instead. What about apartment blocks where the 'neighbour' has to get an elevator 15 floors down just to take the parcel off you, and you can't even be sure their apartment is close to or even on the same floor as the customers. Streets where every house is divided into 15 tiny bedsits - sometimes inhabited by less-than-salubrious individuals. Probably best to just leave a card. Elderly or disabled neighbours who have trouble getting to the door, and look at you like they would really, really, really prefer that you just not bother to get them up out of their armchair next time.

Suit and tie spin-doctors of Royal Mail, whose job it is to push propaganda on the workforce, how about we go back to getting parcels collected from local post offices. Oh yeah, they've all mostly been closed down Or what about getting out earlier so we can deliver the parcels when people are actually in to receive them? Ah too late for that, we've already been 'modernised' and only seem to be leaving the office later and later

No mention that the biggest complaint I always hear from the public is not "why didn't you try my neighbour", but "what happened to the days when you used to deliver earlier?"

[wandle]

They have p739s wrote out in my Manchester office before they leave with NO intentions of delivering the item, this is why some of these runners are back a hour and a half before their time. They don't care about the business only themselves!

Ask these 'runners' if they bought shares in the flotation, or if they are entering the upcoming SAYE scheme in order to buy shares.

Then point out to them that their actions cause the business to incur additional costs, which damage the profitability of that business. Point out also that they have already have shares in Royal Mail (even if it's only the free shares), and any decline in profits will have a consequent knock-on effect on the share price. If profits shrink too much, the company may ultimately have to consider more job losses. So their actions are not only losing the business money, it is causing the 'runners' to lose money, and possibly their job. Numpties !!

[Hitcher]

If the customer was that worried about first time delivery they'd be in!

[enskied]

Failed first time delivery.. Doorstepping accepted before to long. We can only knock and try, delivery to an unknown neighbour is a failed delivery. The sender pays for an item to be posted to a specific address, not somewhere/anywhere convenient for RM management to hit bogus targets. Posties are best placed to decide where it is safe to leaf packets...or not.