Why I use Hermes over the Royal Mail

[TrackerDog]

Hello,

I am a fan of my local Post Office, and wish to support it, and long may it continue, but the Royal Mail seems to have its head stuck in a dark place, and making life difficult and expensive for those who wish to use its services, and is not facing up to the competition.

Point 1 - if you have ever posted an item and it has not been received by the recipient, and you go on to make a claim, you will discover that R.M. has a massive department whose only raison d'etre is to deflect, obfuscate and ultimately deny your claim for proper compensation. On the odd occasion that a parcel has gone astray through myHermes, I have had a polite and prompt service, with apologetic admission of failure, and have been recompensed in full without having to threaten legal action. Compare that with the form-filling, production of purchase invoices, time lapse and the fact that RM won't pay you for the declared value (i.e. what you charged your customer for the item they lost) they will only recompense you postage and your original purchase cost up to the service maximum.

In my case, I buy items in bulk, and am unable to provide exact proof of purchase price for an individual item, so I am stuffed on that front.

This alone tips the balance in favour of myHermes when pricing is comparable, and a choice has to be made between RM and myHermes. The impression I have is that R.M. automatically distrusts my claim, which does not make for good customer relations. It costs far more in time and effort to pursue a claim with RM that it is worth, which probably makes a lot of people like me give up after having tried it once. Not the case if you use myHermes, as I have found.

Point 2 - Before the R.M. introduced Large Letter / Small Parcel B****X, I automatically posted everything Royal mail. Now, if I have to post an ink cartridge weighing 200g, but wider than 2.5cm, it is cheaper for me to send it by taking it to the Co-Op Hermes shop, and they charge me £2.32 + VAT (which I can reclaim) against £2.80 from the Post Office. Add to that the fact that every item is tracked (although there do seem to be some issues with myHermes' tracking now and again) and it's a no-brainer - myHermes is the better option, and if you take it to them, you get 2 working days delivery. Customer happy !

Point 3 - Parcels - the quoted prices for parcels delivered by Parcelforce after you have dragged them to the Post Office are a joke - everyone else will do them cheaper, and pick them up from you ! Internationally, they are even more uncompetitive ! I am sure that this indicates a company structure formed in the days before the market opened up, and they were the only game in town. The competition, from Yodel to UPS have leaner, meaner business models that work. Parcelforce need liposuction ! There's just too much fat middle-management in the RM and its associated companies, and a lack of commercial realism.

On the positive side, I do use RM for all small foreign packets, as they do the job cheaper than anyone else, but still with the reservation that when things go astray, they don't pay up - I even had a "signed for" item undelivered to a Cardinal in Rome, but they wouldn't settle.

Please adopt a realistic business model, give your customer relations a dusting over, and I am sure the public will back you, but do it soon !

[NewPostieUK]

Please adopt a realistic business model, give your customer relations a dusting over, and I am sure the public will back you, but do it soon !

I think you should be telling Royal Mail all this..

[baldrick]

Hermes might be cheaper, but when I have received packets delivered by them they have left them under the doormat, on the doorstep.

[coxie]

I post a lot of parcels and I too use hermes. I sell android boxes and it's much easier to drop them over the road into londis. I like the tracking feature and the print my own label off. Royal Mail need to get with the times on this, other companies make it a lot easier to send a parcel than Royal Mail do.

[eric the viking]

Parcelforce do pick up and on the same day !

[GT750rider]

Well, there's not a lot one can say to the original post. I have to admit I use Hermes for larger packets, and, touch wood, nothing's gone astray so far.
I'm fully aware the guys and gals who deliver Hermes stuff aren't paid very well, before anyone mentions it.

[Snaggletooth]

I think you are a bit unfair on PFW. Not only do they collect but their prices etc are broadly in line with their competitors: DHL, UPS etc. By the sounds of it, you are not in the market segment they are looking to serve: I think the service you would want is Royal Mail Tracked.. Just one problem: Royal Mail do not sell this to the general public, only to big business users. If you go to the Post Office you will find a bit of a gap in their range where RM Tracked should be.

The last major tariff revision by Royal Mail has caused a huge loss of business at the Post Office as customers vote with their feet, as you have. It's going to end in more subsidy or branch closures, I can't see the traffic coming back ever.

A historical note: it's the letters business that was sheltered from competition, the express parcels sector was always subject to competition. For the majority of the last 200 years the railways competed pretty hard for this traffic and made money out of it ('Red Star' was the marketing name when it finally ended in the 1990s).

[coxie]

I use hermes because I know a lot of posties who have been naughty with recordeds and not got a signature, if that happens I don't want the buyer to say they didn't get it.

[herdie]

Funny, but as a customer when I buy stuff, if I don't get delivery by Royal Mail then I shop elsewhere. Your couriers may be cheap but I want my parcel delivered to me, not left in my garden in the rain. You may be saving a few pennies sum on postage but how many customers are you losing?