Postman keep accumulating mails

[Hussey]

My postman never delivers my mails, he always waits for 2-3 weeks on average and delivers 15-20 mails all at once. What should I do.. My credit card and pin letters are delivered together. Where can I complain about it?

[Deadly]

It isn't your postman's decision to wait 2/3 weeks to deliver your mail, it is purely down to management. Complain to your MP.

[NickRMCustomer]

Oh, it's not just me that has wondered if my mail is being collated and delivered at once then - interesting!

I have noticed that I will often go several days without post, then lots of items all of different dates (internal UK mail) all arrive together. I wondered if this was something the sorting office did at busy times to ease pressure? I always get post once a week though, and if I have a tracked item and it says it's going to be delivered it always is. I don't worry about it too much, my postman is very good - the only times it doesn't work so well is when he is away.

It's probably more worrying if you don't get the same postman everyday (or postperson) - whatever the correct term is now.

[fb1969]

It is a deliberate action by RM to save money by having insufficient staff to deliver the rounds. In some cases it is simply not having people to cover a postie's day off, or a period of leave. The office that I left had 9 vacancies on my last day in Aug 22, it now has nearly 20 and no positions were even advertised until a few months ago.

It would be pretty difficult for a postie to deliberately not deliver to an address for several days at a time. But it has been company policy for several years to prioritise delivering parcels and not care in the slightest about letters. Obviously the company deny this, but I was told to "prioritise premium products" and fail mail" in early 2020 and possibly before that.

Not having the same postie each day shows that there is no one permanently assigned to the duty/round. So if someone is spare they will be put on it, but if no one is spare the letters will be left until someone is.

I summary, RM do not care about letters. And with the media usually blaming lazy posties, the real issue is never looked for

[snailmailsdead]

Glaringly obvious , the continued letter and large letter prices are designed to shed volume further, and the best indicator is that its more expensive to send business mail than a stamp.

Rather than focus on making L and LL profitable they chuck money at parcels when literally every other provider is better at it, and half are cheaper.So that will continue to consume cash, and service will continue to decline

[yellowbelly]

Oh, it's not just me that has wondered if my mail is being collated and delivered at once then - interesting!

I have noticed that I will often go several days without post, then lots of items all of different dates (internal UK mail) all arrive together. I wondered if this was something the sorting office did at busy times to ease pressure? I always get post once a week though, and if I have a tracked item and it says it's going to be delivered it always is. I don't worry about it too much, my postman is very good - the only times it doesn't work so well is when he is away.

It's probably more worrying if you don't get the same postman everyday (or postperson) - whatever the correct term is now.

There can be local issues with local staffing, however what has not been mentioned in this thread is that there is officially a procedure in place at the mail centres called IIRC DTS - Delivery to Specification. Certain items of mail are classed as being able to be held for I think it's a max of four days
or until a 'proper' item of mail is received for that specific address. So small catalogues/addressed advertising mail may be held
at the mail centre then sent out to you on a particular day. We at the delivery office level are not privy though to how items are classed.

[NickRMCustomer]

Ah, I see. That actually explains it well. If I have a tracked item, it generally arrives on time and they'll be other items with it, if I have a bank statement that never seems delayed but they'll often be some letters with it again, but nothing of significant importance.

A bit off topic, but you might know the answer to this. There's often a few flyer type leaflets with my mail (offers at local supermarkets, etc). How much time does it add having to add these in and deliver them with the regular posted mail items? Are they added at the delivery office, or do the postmen have to collate them themselves?

[snailmailsdead]

I received an email from my bank ( Halifax) saying they are no longer offering postal statements.I will be weaned off of them over the coming months and they will be replaced with an electronic version. I imagine Lloyds, being the same group will follow.

There can't be many more chunks of letter volume in the market.

[fb1969]

A bit off topic, but you might know the answer to this. There's often a few flyer type leaflets with my mail (offers at local supermarkets, etc). How much time does it add having to add these in and deliver them with the regular posted mail items? Are they added at the delivery office, or do the postmen have to collate them themselves?

Those items (known internally as "door-to-doors" (d2d) or "households") have to be put into the delivery frame by the postie. The procedure is supposed to have changed since I was at RM but the principle is the same. My old office had 60+ duties and the number of d2d varied according to the postcode area going by AA1 1 as the split. That meant some duties could have anything up to 7, while others may only have 1 or 2 so the workload varied. Separate the individual d2d into piles and then collate for one house and put it into the frame, repeat for a column of house which was up to 80 delivery points on my old duty. So for say 4 d2d that was 320 items (4 per house x 80 houses) that had to be put into the frame before you even look at the post. You were supposed to prepare a sixth of the items each day and only deliver to houses with an item of mail so you didn't post only the d2d - but most posties developed their own method for covering all of the addresses over the week.

As I've said, procedures are supposed to have changed now - either all are meant to be prepared on a Monday (just think of the number of items that could involve) or another clueless method is that you carry a bundle of them when on delivery and insert them as you deliver post. Many years ago an area manager who visited my office said that the people who 'sell' the delivery of d2d have no direct link with the delivery side of the business, so the number/shape/size/thickness/weight etc is never taken into account.

[NickRMCustomer]

Oh that sounds a time consuming process. I honestly had no idea that was how it worked, I'd always assumed the mail was sorted, and the d2d (as you refer to them) were added at the delivery office, and the postman picked up a set of ready sorted mail to deliver that included all the d2d items and householder, etc.

[fb1969]

Below is a picture of a typical frame, you can see that it has 7 columns. So in this case, on one day you would probably have to do two columns of d2d to ensure all are done by the end of the week. If time permitted I would try to get ahead with them, maybe having them all in the frame by Thursday.

You can see the slots, each slot usually is one address (though sometimes you may have two addresses sharing a slot). Put the d2d in separate piles and then collate a set of one of each, and put them in a slot. Repeat for each slot in a column, taking care to leave then for places with an official opt out. Once all that is done, you them start putting the mail in and packets above all the slots.

The office I worked at was part of a trial some years ago where the d2d came in already collated and with an A3 sheet wrapped round them so you didn't have all the sperate piles. With the shapes and sizes of the d2d varying it wasn't easy with a floppy sheet of paper added to the bundle. It was probably the only trial that RM never went ahead with whether it worked or not!

[NickRMCustomer]

What a challenging process. Are there still targets on delivering d2d; I would have thought with the overall burden of less staff, more parcels, less letters, it would make sense to relax any targets around it and deliver it when and where possible?

Is this typical of a modern delivery office? It's how I assumed RM once worked, but I sense so much has changed, and envisage most of the mail moves around on conveyor belts now. I've often wondered if handwritten envelopes in joined up handwriting (that can't be common now), are sifted out for manual sorting?

[fb1969]

Based on when I left, mail came into the office in 3 different states. One - Standard letters up to A5 size should be in a tray and pre-sorted into the correct sequence, this would usually include hand written envelopes assuming the writing was fairly legible. Two - letters larger than A5 and all other items (including A5 catalogues) come in in trays in relatively random order, although if an office did more than one postcode area (eg AA1 and AA2) they would be split. Three - some catalogues etc could come in in trays for pairs of rounds, either a "van share" pairing or a pair of solo rounds. No conveyor belts or the like, manual sorting is sitting/standing and sorting into what used to be called pigeon holes - one time consuming bit at my office was that some rounds had to share a pigeon hole with another round, so the manually sorted post then had to be split between the rounds at the frame.

The d2d are supposed to be treated as "live mail" so not delivering them could have the same consequences as leaving letters behind. If I was delivering to places that I knew the letter boxes were close (eg flats or a terrace street) I would often take a whole section of d2d if I knew I'd get rid of all of them. Reading sections of this forum that are for posties, it seems that d2d are often left without being sorted and pile up in the corner. It is something else again that RM are happy to take the money for but not actually bother to provide the service that has been paid for. I remember a case at the start of covid where a company had paid for the d2d to be delivered due to having a sale but then they had to close due to the lockdown - they contacted RM to tell them not to deliver the d2d and didn't expect any refund, but RM replied saying that they wanted the same payment again as the charge to not deliver them.

I would have thought with the overall burden of less staff, more parcels, less letters, it would make sense to relax any targets around it and deliver it when and where possible?

If only RM cared about reducing the burden etc on their staff, the just want and expect the existing staff to do more and more. A main reason why I left was the intolerable level of stress. As well as running letters into the ground, RM are also trying to the same with longer serving staff as the new contracts they offer have worse T&Cs and a lower pay rate. The have deliberately undermanned offices for years and then turn out the same excuses whenever the poor service levels make the local newspapers.