The last mile

[jemima]

I found this on

http://www.supplychainstandard.com/liCh ... +mile.html


At one time, the postman brought most of our home shopping purchases in his daily haul. The Royal Mail postie and the Parcelforce delivery driver are usually regulars on their beat, or at least they are in my rural part of the country. They address us by name, they know who lives where - so correct address errors - and they know of that safe place to leave anything.

It''s home delivery by third party couriers that''s the nightmare. Despite satnavs and maps, many still fail to find our house, leading to somewhat bizarre telephone conversations as we talk them in while hovering hopefully by the front gate. And those who do find the house all too often fail to deliver a satisfactory point of contact for the hapless merchant who is using their services.

Last month, I finally gave up on a particular wine merchant from which we have bought many pleasant bottles over the years. The reason? The driver, who always seems to be racing the clock, does not have time to ring the doorbell or even place our precious purchases in a safe place. Over the years, we have found cases of wine dumped by the front gate, in front of the cars in the driveway or by the wheelie bins. Strongly worded instructions on the case label to ''ring the doorbell'' or ''obtain a signature'' are ignored.

Since I work from home, I''m generally in when goods arrive but that doorbell never rings - it can be quite some time before we find anything deposited by the doorstep. The record was four days for an ironing board from John Lewis which had been tucked behind a rose bush.

The cases of wine fared rather less well during this summer''s downpours and extricating bottles and their detached labels from sodden cardboard is not a pleasant task. You can imagine my chagrin in June when Amazon moved its second class delivery business from Royal Mail. Yes, I found my last parcel of books perched on the car when I went out to post a letter.

According to Royal Mail, the contract was lost Wouldn''t it be nice if someone other than grocery retailers cared about that final point of contact ''on price... because we''re not as modern and efficient as others''. Those others may be efficient but perhaps that efficiency has as much to do with increasing productivity by encouraging delivery drivers to work at speed as with investment in technology and slick systems.

While blogs regularly berate the various couriers that online retailers use, the general dearth of delivery options often means they have little choice but to continue to use these less than ideal operators.

Online retail volumes will continue to grow (and forecasts of 20 per cent of all retail sales within a few years already look conservative) despite inadequate deliveries. But, wouldn''t it be nice if someone other than grocery retailers cared about that final point of contact and delivered home shopping purchases with a cheery smile and no need to keep asking for directions. Someone rather like my postman, in fact.

Dr. penelope ody is a regular columnist with SCS and is a retail market specialist

[Bloke7]

The future's bright...

The future is Leighton And Crozier's Fantastic Postal Service.

[Herodotus]

Magnificent post - Jemima - My DOM this morning was explaining how the Royal Mail intend to further ruin the postal service. We have monkeys for management - now they want monkeys for blue-shirts. The CMA have sold us down the Swanee - lets see their faces - when the incompetent jackasses - are themselves axed!

Stand United - We Gotta Win This One!

[F0zziebear]

I don't disagree with the anecdotes, but it put that up as fact is suspect.

I personally bought something from Argos the other week. They tried to deliver when I was out on Friday, and then agreed immediately to try the following Monday. The driver turned up after his shift had supposedly finished, and apologised as he was out of the depot slightly late.

So there's an example when a company uses a third party carrier other than Parcelforce or RM to deliver something and I was impressed.

Which story do you believe.

Bad couriers will lose business.

Parcelforce restructured under Vanessa Leeson and are now far more comeptitive, maybe there is a story to be told?

F0zz

[TrueBlueTerrier]

I don't disagree with the anecdotes, but it put that up as fact is suspect.

I personally bought something from Argos the other week. They tried to deliver when I was out on Friday, and then agreed immediately to try the following Monday. The driver turned up after his shift had supposedly finished, and apologised as he was out of the depot slightly late.

So there's an example when a company uses a third party carrier other than Parcelforce or RM to deliver something and I was impressed.

Which story do you believe.

Bad couriers will lose business.

Parcelforce restructured under Vanessa Leeson and are now far more comeptitive, maybe there is a story to be told?

F0zz

F0zz - in the OP I dont see anything stated as fact it was a post from a blog stating an opinion on the service we as Postmen and Postwomen try to provide so not sure what the first line in your post is meant to draw attention too.

However, the rest of the post I agree with on principle, and in this lies the problem with flexibility. A few years down the line I envisage arriving at work and being told what duty I am on. I think AL AC final target is for Posties not to have dedicated duties and this will erode the personal service so many British people, and posties, see as a Valued (but unprofitable) part of the service Royal Mail provide.

[F0zziebear]

Apologies, I assumed it was an article and get annoyed a journalists local PO isn't quite tidy enough and then bangs on about the whole country.

You may be right about flexibility, however part of RM's unique service proposition is the local postie. the problem is who will pay for it? The large banks as I have said so many times make up a hugely disproportionate amount of RM's revenue. They send the mail from large print houses. It is not recipient in the street who pays for it, but they are the one's who value the local postie the most.

This is the problem. RM at the moment cannot afford to provide sentimentality as their competitors are squeezing them. Traditionally the reciever of mail has been seen as the customer, but that doesn't make sense.

Personally the local postie should be a cherished commodity, but then so was the local milkman and look what's happeend to them, or to the local bobbie on the beat.

A tricky one to solve. However, if the government said this is a public service and provided approx. £1bn per annum then we could preserve posties on one round, who incidentally provide a better customer service, lower customer complaints etc... (so the Key Performance Indicators) back this up.

I only hope my former bosses recognise this somewhere hidden amongst the pounds shillings and pence

[TrueBlueTerrier]

As an ex-serviceman who did a number of active service tours., I would rather they spend the money on local services and infrastructure then on fighting what I consider to be an illegal war in Iraq and a strategically questionable war in Afghanistan.

£1 billion a year for a decent public service - that yes has to be more efficient or £7.4 billion on Iraq alone.

source http://www.iraqanalysis.org/publications/235

[ROCKY]

as some one who has spent years correctly delivering parcels that have been dumped in all manner of strange places and incorrectly delivered items on rural deliveries i can say that this insight is true,the problem is that we are easilly held to account where as many of the couriers are not, i was faced with an irate customer blaming me for dumping 20 odd next catalogues outside his mill conversion block of flats(posh type)they were soaked and ruined,nothing i could about it and to be honest next all those sales you lost all i can say is that cheapest does not equal best