I use OBA and currently use CRL and OLA and have been since Nov 2011.
Today I get a phone call from the New Business Team telling me that due to me spending more that £5000 p/a on OLA then I qualify for a discount rate using IE3.
After a nice discussion and detailed examples of what savings could be made, I was chuffed and ended the call knowing that 5 days later I could be using the Code and saving money.
Since the Call I have been thinking.
About £100 of my Sales Order each day is OLA so after 10 weeks of me starting using OBA I would have qualified for the discounted rate.
If I was aware of the £5000 Threshold then would I have chosen to jump onto the Discounted Rate? YES
If Royal Mail knew I had hit the £5000 Threshold then do they have a Duty to inform me of the Discounted Rate?
If it wasnt for the Phone Call Today, which the lady explains to me that she is new in the Job and has taken it upon herself to contact all customers that qualify for this Discount, would I still be using OLA? YES
To add to this, I also get a phone call today from my local Royal Mail Rep whos words where, 'You have me as your Local Royal Mail Rep, you dont need to go through the New Business Team'. This particular person had failed twice previously when I told him that the collection van was not big enough over Christmas, (I ended up taking mail to the Post Office for them to collect from there), we also kept on running out of Sacks, (after not getting enough we also had to borrow from a local post office).
I told the Rep that having a Local Rep had been useless so far (and reminded him of the 2 points above) and then asked him if he knew about the £5k threshold then why didnt he contact me sooner. He simply froze and gave no explanation and apologised.
I am seriously thinking about taking Legal Advice and trying to get a backdated calculation of exactly when I did hit the Threshold and then working out if my Sales Orders had been entered as IE3 and NOT OLA what Credit Note would I be entitled to.
Was I kept on OLA by a Corrupt Sales Rep who gets commision from my Sales?
Should I push ahead and try to get this Backdated?
What do you think?
Nigel
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Upgraded from OLA to IE3 but way too late!
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obauser
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barrowc
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Re: Upgraded from OLA to IE3 but way too late!
On the specific codes you mention, OLA is an airmail service whereas IE3 is a surface service. There's a large difference in the expected delivery times between those services especially for Rest Of World destinations. I suspect that you either want to go from OLA to IE1 (both are airmail) or from OLS to IE3 (both are surface). I'll assume that IE1 is the service you actually want.
There's also the issue of VAT. OLA isn't subject to VAT (except when combined with Airsure to EU destinations) whereas IE1 is liable to VAT for any items going to EU destinations. The impact this would have obviously depends on what proportion of your traffic goes to the EU and also on how much of the VAT you could potentially reclaim. There are also volume related discounts on IE1 if you post more than a certain amount of items per day. OLA specifically doesn't have any form of discounting as it would otherwise incur VAT for any mail to the EU (a similar situation exists with the BPL and BPR services for inland mail)
All of these services are detailed on royalmail.com and you could have found out the appropriate entry levels and prices from there. I suspect that would be Royal Mail's answer to any challenge on why you weren't specifically offered this service. They would hardly be the only company guilty of letting customers stay on expensive services when cheaper options existed. Given that you are a business customer, I suspect that there is very little you could do about this apart from take your business elsewhere.
There are differences in how the mail should be presented - OLA allows all formats whereas IE1 is specifically for packets - so there's no guarantee that the mail you presented in the past would have met the IE1 criteria. One issue you may encounter with IE1 (and any other international contract services) is that incorrectly presented mail is liable to rework charges (details on page 6 of the prices at http://www.royalmail.com/parcel-despatc ... al-packets) over and above the cost of postage. These charges don't apply to OLA
There's also the issue of VAT. OLA isn't subject to VAT (except when combined with Airsure to EU destinations) whereas IE1 is liable to VAT for any items going to EU destinations. The impact this would have obviously depends on what proportion of your traffic goes to the EU and also on how much of the VAT you could potentially reclaim. There are also volume related discounts on IE1 if you post more than a certain amount of items per day. OLA specifically doesn't have any form of discounting as it would otherwise incur VAT for any mail to the EU (a similar situation exists with the BPL and BPR services for inland mail)
All of these services are detailed on royalmail.com and you could have found out the appropriate entry levels and prices from there. I suspect that would be Royal Mail's answer to any challenge on why you weren't specifically offered this service. They would hardly be the only company guilty of letting customers stay on expensive services when cheaper options existed. Given that you are a business customer, I suspect that there is very little you could do about this apart from take your business elsewhere.
There are differences in how the mail should be presented - OLA allows all formats whereas IE1 is specifically for packets - so there's no guarantee that the mail you presented in the past would have met the IE1 criteria. One issue you may encounter with IE1 (and any other international contract services) is that incorrectly presented mail is liable to rework charges (details on page 6 of the prices at http://www.royalmail.com/parcel-despatc ... al-packets) over and above the cost of postage. These charges don't apply to OLA