Ramble about Pricing in Proportion

[TrueBlueTerrier]

ROYAL MAIL TO CLOSE - SOON - PLEASE!

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This is not really a "news" story and will fit in much better as a conversation starter in the "2.0" new version of ModernSelling.com that is coming later this month. However, since it happened to me last week, I thought I'd share it with readers now.

So, picture this simple story of everyday life for few folks living in the Shires, and enjoying all the privileges of life in Great Britain. Prime, amongst those, are our inherited and fabulous national institutions, like the National Health Service and, of course, Postman Pat and the much-envied Royal Mail service.

Christmas has been and gone, the cards all (mostly) delivered, despite the adverse and very unusual weather conditions (I mean snow, in winter, who ever heard of such a thing!?) and one bit of simple tidying up afterwards is for Royal Mail to deliver a quick thank you note, sent by a grateful and loving mother, after yours truly & family had her over for Xmas. She's only been using the Royal Mail for about 70+ years now though, so how was she to know that a "Thank You Letter" (standard postcard size when folded, one piece of paper, standard envelope, First Class stamp) has now changed, beyond all recognition?

"How so?" - I hear you ask. Well, part and parcel of the family Xmas chit-chat was that the lovely Mrs W (junior - my wife), was struggling to find a decent pair of laces for her outdoor dog-walking boots, and Mrs W (senior - my mum) had made a mental note and was kind enough to slip a pair into the thank-you note. Now, at 0.001 of a gram or whatever a pair of shoelaces weighs, nobody, not even a fanatical tick-boxer at Royal Mail Jobsworth department, could begin to imagine that we might have transgressed some unnoticed, sub-clause, new-rules, paragraph 27, section 35(b) "weight" issue. So Mum didn't either. And, because they were unwrapped and lying flat on the paper, she couldn't really see how the width of a flat shoelace could transform a "letter" into a "small parcel" or whatever – but that's where she was (and you would be) - WRONG!
Is it a Letter? Or is it a Racket for a Packet?

I'll carry on with the tale of woe though, ‘cos it gets better/worse. So, the day before my birthday in fact, I get a few bits and pieces dropped through the letterbox, by Pat, amongst which is a card s/he filled in by hand (probably took a minute or two), explaining that someone had tried to send me an item of postage that was £1.10 "underpaid". I was picturing a parcel, of course, stuck into the system in a hurry by an enthusiastic child of one description or another, in the middle of a conurbation and without access to full posting paraphernalia (likes scales, measuring slots, massively variable stamps, etc.). Anyway, not SUCH a big bother, given that I already had to visit the only functioning post-office left in town, pay the parking, queue (whilst 8 people in front of me were attended to by 1.5 servers, weighing and measuring an average of 20 items of nearly identical post each), pay in some money – and the Sorting Office (different from the Post Office, of course) is ONLY half a mile's walk on from there.
Getting it Sorted...

It was a bit irritating, I must admit, to find that the Sorting Office also had a queue of 8, each clutching an "underpaid/overweight/over-sized" note from Pat, and that the 1.5 servers in there were equally struggling to get through this massive workload, at what seemed like an average of 5 minutes each, to find where they had "sorted" such items, check the ID, take the payment, locate some change, and so on. So I guess I wasn't in the best of moods when it came to my turn, waited my further 5 minutes and then was proffered Mum's letter, looking a little the worse for wear. "WHAT!?" is probably a slightly shortened version of what I actually said/asked, so perhaps the sheepish and defensive "The (machine) computer said NO", was to be expected. And I thank the remaining/next punter who was in the queue after me, for chipping in with "Ah yes, I had one of those too!", but it didn't help all that much, and nor did such "focus group" customer feedback seem to be making much of a dent on our server's conscience.

Wary of my blood pressure, I nonetheless took it upon myself to walk back round to the Post Office, and queued, again, to see what such a weighty/bulky item SHOULD have cost to pop into the system, IF ONLY my Mum had been properly trained and had been paying attention. 20 minutes later, I'm at the front, and asked (nice as pie), if I could be advised what it would cost to post this item, in my hand, First Class, to be sent 25 miles up the road? Suspicion and paranoia rule supreme (by now) of course, so my server asked if she could see/touch/feel the item, which is fair enough. And she also quite quickly worked out that, because it was already franked and crumpled, it might not be a new item on which she was actually going to make a sale (more likely one for the Complaints Office, methinks).
Weights & Measures

Anyway, she then whips out her trusty, A4 sized, plastic measuring board (and no regular poster should be without one, I know now), in which were a baffling array of ready-made slots. The smallest and most discrete of these is the 5mm (about one fifth of an inch, in old money) slot, by the way, reserved for only the "cheapest" mail items, like a letter. The one (my Mum's letter), is introduced to the other (the slot) and, of course, passes straight through, with hardly a fraction of friction to impede its progress. "Something not right here" – is what I swear I could actually see her think – "Let's have another go". So she did, with the same result. Third time "lucky", after performing a kind of Rubik's Cube juggle with it, she manages to get one of the leading edges of a loose bootlace to catch on an edge of the slot, through the envelope paper and, by maintaining a special angle of attack, she could then force the following envelope to crumple, in her hand. "There, you see? That's the problem!"

(There followed a moment's silence......)

"It's a bit of a grey one, this one"

(..............)

"Marginal – I'd say".

So we agreed to disagree on that aspect, but I still wanted to know how to get my £1.10 back (having decided to waive the parking and queuing charges). Checking with the boss behind the counter didn't produce much joy, so I was sent packing with the Customer Service Helpline number.
HELP! It's a Customer!! (or is it a Plane?)

I don't know what it was that convinced me that - this time – it was worth following up, because I really, really should know better by now. Nonetheless, phone them I did, and then enjoyed the next 20 minutes negotiating the mind-boggling labyrinth that is the automated message/menu board of Royal Mail Customer Helpline (it's 0845 722 3344 if you want to try it, but be warned that "some" fixed-line operators charge a "special rate" for dialling "local rate" numbers these days – I suspect mine included so have that additional pain to add, when I get my Virgin Media bill). Many or most of the Option 4, 3, 3, 5, 7, 2, 2 routes probably end up in a recorded explanation of why they went insane many moons ago, and certainly my first two attempts did, finishing with "Thank you for calling….beeeeeeeeeep". So the answer is to head for the screamingly improbable options, that surely must need a human to discuss/explain, and thus I ended up talking to Tracy (or whoever), ostensibly about the Royal Mail aeroplane that had just crashed through my roof.

She didn't seem too disappointed that it was only a letter-problem (so credit there Tracy), nor indeed that the "underpaid" issue was, actually, 10p extra for what they might have asked to charge (IF ONLY – Mum!), plus £1 for all the trouble The Royal Mail had been put to, "handling" this. But I did then struggle a bit, getting her to understand that their customers might have some "handling charge" issues, of their own (e.g. parking, queuing, and now phone bills – with one hour+ on the meter, already). Tracy and I batted it back and forth for a while, anyway, in best "Customer v Customer Service" style, and I guess she concluded that I was just one of those "Angry of Tunbridge Wells" types, when I resisted going to their website, finding, downloading and printing a form P58, re-bundling the letter, and sending it in with a covering note about what had gone wrong (in my opinion). The Official Complaints Department (not her) would then take a look at it, apparently, and make a ruling.

"Filing a Complaint" with her, as the next route, also seemed less than satisfactory, since she explained the outcome of that as "Well, if you ever needed to complain again, in future, we'd also know that you had complained this time". And it was on the fifth or sixth attempt at "Is there anything else we could try Tracy?", that we got to

"....or I could Ask the Manager?"

Sounded promising, I thought.....

"Do you want me to do that?"

"Yes please"

".....now?"

"Yes, if you would"

(.........can't remember the holding tune)
Payment in kind - kinda

"Right, well, The Manager Says – not setting a precedent – very unusual circumstances – special arrangement – will arrange a refund…."

(..............)

"It's going to be a book of stamps though!"

Never mind, never mind, (stop laughing at the back there), Tracy did her best and we should maybe pause to pity her for having landed one of the worst possible jobs in Customer Service. The stamps have also arrived – SIX – FIRST CLASS (so I think I might have made a stonking great PROFIT on the deal – or bits of it anyway) – the explanatory justification letter only ran to a side and a half of A4, AND it all seemed to fit through a 5mm gap, so they paid their own correct postage and all's well that ends well.

No? You think there might be a "sales" lesson in there, somewhere? Oh come on, there's just no pleasing some people, and NO, the customer is not always right, tick-boxing bureaucrats have had their moments too, you know. Mind you, it did leave me pondering why it was that I used to spend up to £10,000 a month with the Royal Mail, and sold mailing lists for all my customers to spend thousands more, and now spend about £0 (less refunds), if I can at all avoid it?
Anything you wanted to add (to that letter) Sir/Madam?

See – told you it might make a better discussion point than "article", but you'll just have to wait in the queue, until we get the New ModernSelling.com 2.0 up and running. Thank you for reading about my thank you letter meanwhile though.

[POSTMAN]

So many flaws in this.

[Broxi51]

Gave up reading after first paragraph when the word dick sprang to mind.

[norbert]

So many flaws in this.

If you use those parcel firms it's still got be measured for weight , depth , height and width and they work on cubic volume as they maintain it could be cheaper to send a lead pipe wrapped in brown paper and is two metres long than a piece of Balsa wood which is one square metre ....and woe betide if you got anything wrong .

[Lounge Lizard]

Gave up reading after first paragraph when the word dick sprang to mind.

Yes, more boring than the neighbour's holiday slides.
And all because Mrs W didn't have the sense the keep or memorise the "size guide" delivered to every residence when PIP was introduced in 2006.

[Throgg]

It was a bit irritating, I must admit, to find that the Sorting Office also had a queue of 8,

Only 8 in the queue? We dream of days in our office when we could have so few waiting to be served.

[SWIM]

I want those 3 minutes back.

[fishtank]

It kind of sums up what's wrong with this country...a god knows how many word ramble/rant about a £1.10 surcharge while Cameron hikes the VAT up to 20% and throws another 100,000 on the dole to pay for the bankers little "problem".
I never thought i'd say it but i wish i was French...
We call them surrender monkeys....

[clashcityrocker]

I never thought i'd say it but i wish i was French...

You could change your user name to Monsieur Aquarium.

[Lounge Lizard]

I never thought i'd say it but i wish i was French...

You could change your user name to Monsieur Aquarium.

et le vôtre se heurter à bascule ville

[clashcityrocker]

Tu peux me tutoyer, Lezard du Salon

[andy2007]

Gave up reading after first paragraph when the word dick sprang to mind.

Yes, more boring than the neighbour's holiday slides.
And all because Mrs W didn't have the sense the keep or memorise the "size guide" delivered to every residence when PIP was introduced in 2006.

Why?
The point of his ramble, was that the letter was only just small enough to fit through the slot. But surely by now, people should know that it's pointless to try to save a few pence, by forcing an item through a slot, instead of paying the extra. And as for his claim that it went through the slot twice, before finally crumpling, after a "Rubik's Cube juggle". Well come on! That's not very likley, is it?