3 new services I'd like to see from Royal Mail

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 08 Dec 2017, 13:58

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This post is inspired by an exchange I had with a local Royal Mail postman just after the cyber weekend. I asked how his day was and he said “Hardly anyone is in, so I’m taking all these parcels for a nice walk.” He motioned to his trolley laden with parcels, many of which were presumably Black Friday purchases.

Royal Mail remains the UK’s largest parcel carrier in terms of volume. And yet it’s also relatively unsophisticated when it comes to the options available to parcel recipients. And encountering that poor postie got me thinking about possible innovations and services Royal Mail could be offering to not only provide added convenience to parcel recipients but also save precious resources. It’s a significant waste of time and money to send a postie out to so many houses that are inevitably empty on a weekday. Here are some ideas. You might have some more.

Defer until Saturday service
Plenty of people simply aren’t in during normal postal hours during the working week. Parcels get taken for a walk from Monday to Friday and then on Saturday the recipient schleps up to the sorting office. How about offering a service whereby you can indicate online that you won’t be in during a particular week when a parcel is due, and ask that parcels aren’t delivered until Saturday?

Royal Mail Lockers
Once a delivery has been missed and I have the card, I can opt to have that parcel redelivered to a post office branch in the area for a small fee. That’s less convenient since my local Crown branch was shut down last year but others are handy enough. It’s time for Royal Mail to embrace lockers like other national mail providers do. They could be in branch or in shopping centres and it would be useful to opt into this for parcel deliveries. Correos in Spain allows people to have all mail delivered to in branch lockers for the cost of €10 a month. If I know I won’t be in, it would make sense to opt for parcel delivery to a Royal Mail locker which Imcan pop to at my convenience.

Sundays and evening deliveries
Whilst the Royal Mail and CWU are currently wrangling over how late the letter post should come during the day, in the real world other carriers are delivering at ever more convenient times. Amazon, for instance, is delivering parcels on Christmas Eve which is a Sunday this year. Royal Mail doesn’t deliver at all on Sundays or in the evening. It’s time to reconsider that inflexible, old- fashioned notion.

olilew · Post by **olilew** » 08 Dec 2017, 14:14

Must have been written by a senior manager or director at Royal Mail!

NWpostie · Post by **NWpostie** » 08 Dec 2017, 14:34

Some good points tho particularly Royal Mail lockers in secure locations where you can have it dropped off and get texted/emailed pin code to open.

Evening deliveries and Sunday drops all can only be a job saver.

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 08 Dec 2017, 14:42

Evening, Weekend and nominated delivery days are all good ideas for FT jobs and those that don't mind doing them. I big drawback is that it goes against Royal Mail stated policy of 1 trip down the path which is why except at Christmas they are getting rid of packet duties.

Mind you the flaw in their strategy as I see it is they are using a declining market (letters), to stay competitive in the growth one (parcels). As a short to mid-term solution it has benefits, but long-term at some point the savings will be wiped out by the costs of relying on a reducing market.

Long-term Royal Mail needs to get back to the USP, that was early deliveries and local posties, however, I doubt I will see it in the 14 years I have left before retirement.

yubin282 · Post by **yubin282** » 08 Dec 2017, 17:26

does that mean that saturday will be the busiest day ever, lets face it none of us want to work saturday

k979aaa · Post by **k979aaa** » 08 Dec 2017, 18:48

So we will need 200% more staff on Saturday. And make post offices 400% bigger (even though we do not own them anymore) . As well as have even more staff on Saturday and Sunday in the evening as well not to mention all the pipe line mail sorters and everything else has this bloody idiot ever done anything in his life but write waffle of the first class obviously has no idea how a a business is run it is not there to cater for the feckless lazy journalists of the world or their ilk. I say this to Dan Wilson get a job as a postman and show us all how it's done don't talk the talk walk the walk and tell us all then how it is so Dan!

postslippete · Post by **postslippete** » 08 Dec 2017, 20:54

1. Don't agree with everything going on a Saturday - however we could offer customers an option to deliver packets on weekday evenings up to 7pm for those who don't mind delivering then when plenty of customers are usually in

2. Some customers might not understand why they have to pay extra to collect parcels from their local Post Office because they assume that the Post Office and the Royal Mail are synonymous with each other. Surely getting any customers into post offices is a good thing for their business as well when customers buy stationery, cards, stamps etc. As for having lockers in shopping centres, is it truly cost effective?

3. Sundays - I don't think that there is the business available to work on Sundays on deliveries, except at Xmas

Post by **eric the viking** » 09 Dec 2017, 12:05

Parcelforce is Royal Mail and we deliver Sundays.

yubin282 · Post by **yubin282** » 09 Dec 2017, 16:05

that means saturday will be the worst day of the week, lets face it none of us really wanna work saturday

Post by **Lounge Lizard** » 09 Dec 2017, 17:03

"and ask that parcels aren’t delivered until Saturday?" - and then they're out on Saturday.

UnhappyGremlin · Post by **UnhappyGremlin** » 09 Dec 2017, 20:43

Alternatively, as people aren't going to be in Monday to Friday, presumably because they are at work, why not just get the parcels delivered there?
Cos, you know, they will be 'in'.

JKSmudge · Post by **JKSmudge** » 09 Dec 2017, 22:14

I have had similar thoughts shortly after I started at RM around 3 years ago....Royal Mail needs to start thinking differently - how about having designated places where parcels/packets can be left for collection ? Shops or even private residences that will, for a fee, recieve parcels and then take responsibility for their collection/distribution ?
I would happily take an extra street or 2 of letters in exchange for a drastic reduction in parcels/packets.

I don't know about you guys but the distinction betwwen 'packets' & 'oversized' parcels is increasingly blurred - most of what turns up in my packet bags cannot be put through a letterbox, so involves a knock or 3, visit to neighbour and inevitable 739 card.

How about some radical thinking ? let the recipient decide what day/time ( window ) they want to recieve mail OR even say they are happy to collect from depot ( as many of my customers/delivery points are) - thus saving the ridiculous time/effort/expense of taking items out that we know are just going to be returned to caller's office.

Do we not have a department for bright ideas or do we just continue with the same ( failing ) concepts for the years ahead ?

elteleltel · Post by **elteleltel** » 09 Dec 2017, 22:27

Why not encourage the customer to get a secure metal box .Quite frankly people that constantly order stuff to an address when they know nobody will be in must be crazy or must like visiting the delivery office .
It does not take much commonsense for RM to liaise with customers and sell them a secure box .

JKSmudge · Post by **JKSmudge** » 09 Dec 2017, 22:42

eric the viking wrote:Parcelforce is Royal Mail and we deliver Sundays.

...and we posties say several times a week ' why the fk is this not going with parcelforce ? ' as we struggle to fit 1 or 2 very large boxes into our vans

I am seriously considering switching to PF for the last few years of my working life as 100 - 120 deliveries seems much better than 50 - 70+ parcels/packets/signed-for/specials/internationals plus letters/leaflets AND 3 hours+ of prepping 2 walks whilst baby-sitting newbie 'buddies' all day ( I'm sure PF employees will correct me with any assumptions I have - but I have done parcel deliveries for 2 other companies prior to being a postie )..... I have less than 7 years to my retirement date, just hope I don't have a heart attack or feet/knees/back give out before then

Spedley · Post by **Spedley** » 09 Dec 2017, 23:19

We get many 'Local Collects' for Post Offices into our office these days. We also get some that use our office as a collection point. Customers get notified before 8am that their packages is awaiting collection from the D.O.
Nobody else can offer guaranteed delivery that quickly!

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