Handing in items at DOs

[Lockardian]

I sometimes hand in parcels at our local DO when I’ve bought Tracked postage through Click and Drop. If I want an “accepted” scan this is the only way other than booking a collection or handing them in at the Post Office (which is now chargeable).

Despite being assured this won’t take any longer to reach the outward MC than mail from POs and post boxes, I often find these items take an extra day to get an inward scan at the mail centre. Obviously there’s a cut off point to hand items in (I’m told 3pm weekdays/11am Saturdays) because after that there are no dispatches from the DO to MC, but I tend to hand them in very early (8-10am) when I know there will be time to easily meet dispatch (there’s always a van takes redirections and mis-sorts over to the MC in the afternoon).

Why are packets handed in at the DOs not given the same priority as other post? As for the items that are “collected” by the postie, even they normally get to the MC the same day here. You would think items handed in would be dispatched along with the collected items. This hasn’t just happened once or twice - it became the norm so I started using the PO (before this became chargeable) who were happy to accept and scan Tracked items, and now I’m wondering if it’s worth just paying the 16p extra to guarantee a same-day dispatch to the MC.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Could be down to just the old basic bad luck.

The Caller's offices, or Customer Service Points as they call them, are usually manned by only 1 person so if they have time to wheel it around to the dispatch point your items make it in time. If they don't, like when they have a queue of customers, and they can't leave the front desk then it might wait till the end of the shift.

It's typical Royal Mail planning and organisation.

[Lockardian]

Thanks TBT - that makes sense! You would think the person or persons on dispatch would collect mail from the callers office if it didn’t appear to have been wheeled around to them. But that would take common sense, wouldn’t it?!