Mail volumes

[Whysoslowyehcfc]

We keep hearing the same old line "that mail volumes are dropping ",but is this true?
Let's say for arguments sake, that instead of myself receiving 8 letters a week, I now only receive 4 letters a week, but with the rate that new builds are going up, you could have a new block of luxury apartments with upto 70 new customers in, all receiving 4 letters a week, and that's without any packets, tracked or specials.
Example we moved office 6 weeks ago, and since then we have had 470 new delivery points added with more to come, but will we get an extra walk or drive put in? Of course not, we've already been told that all new delivery points will be absorbed even though there is no more room to put these dp's in the areas where these have been opened.
Not only that, but yesterday we had 773 tracked items in our office and that's without the 48 yorks of packets and 500+ special deliveries.
SO, ROYAL MAIL AND BACKED UP BY THE CWU, DONT TRY AND TELL US THAT MAIL VOLUMES ARE DROPPING, WHEN CLEARLY THEY ARE NOT, DO THE MATHS!

[motherhubbard]

It depends when you compare it to.
Back in the day everybody got an electricity bill, a gas bill, a phone bill, a bank statement and a credit card bill.
All utility bills were paid by cheque.
All that mail has virtually disappeared as online billing and payment has taken over.

As an example of the virtual disappearance of letter mail, you only have to consider xmas cards.
The volume is nothing like it was 10 - 15 years ago.

We might individually be handling more mail but we are at least 60 000 fewer hands doing the work.

[franco1]

Its true that some mail has declined but in fact marketing mail has increased and this is according to RM's own findings as presented to their shareholders.

[eastie]

Yes mail is down
But RM staff are down even more but they conveniently forget that

[halfull]

packets take the time & they are growing at a rate that far superseeds the decline (or so called decline) in post.
Just wait untill every packet has to have a scan im sure the cwu will agree this adds notime to delivery & if you have a problem follow the over running mail procedure

[franco1]

Procedure for delivering parcel.
knock on door.
post normal mail.
Following steps taken whilst waiting for door to open.
1. write date on parcel and make mental note of name of recipient.
2. put parcel back in bag.
3. write p739.
4. if no answer put card through.
Time taken = too long.

Alternative options : Doorstep, find neighbour, lob through open window.
Quiz : which method is RM approved??

[Nondescript]

When I started this job 10 years ago I delivered six heavy bags a day. These days its nine or ten. So irrepsective of mail volumes, our workload continues to increase.

[RedBagMan]

What annoys me is the use of the word "volume" rather than "number" ... to me "volume" implies size. Therefore instead of delivering 10 small flimsy letters we are now delivering 8 bloody big catalogues ... "numbers" may be down but "volume" is certainly up (at least that's what my back is telling me !)

[buntin]

never in a million years are volumes dropping in our offfice. They must think we were born yesterday keep spinning us that old chestnut.

[yubin282]

I'm sure when i joined the business in 2004 i watched a video in my induction, allan leighton (remember him) saying that mail would volume would fall 10% per year so really we should have no mail whatsoever by now

[BarnsleyLackey]

Procedure for delivering parcel.
knock on door.
post normal mail.
Following steps taken whilst waiting for door to open.
1. write date on parcel and make mental note of name of recipient.
2. put parcel back in bag.
3. write p739.
4. if no answer put card through.
Time taken = too long.

Alternative options : Doorstep, find neighbour, lob through open window.
Quiz : which method is RM approved??

Only lob through window if you like the customer enough to let them claim for a new TV.

[franco1]

Why dont these new bar coded parcels have stickers on them like the reg mail?
When you need to write 739 you have to write in parcel number, whos brilliant idea was this??

[masterblaster]

We keep hearing the same old line "that mail volumes are dropping ",but is this true?
Let's say for arguments sake, that instead of myself receiving 8 letters a week, I now only receive 4 letters a week, but with the rate that new builds are going up, you could have a new block of luxury apartments with upto 70 new customers in, all receiving 4 letters a week, and that's without any packets, tracked or specials.
Example we moved office 6 weeks ago, and since then we have had 470 new delivery points added with more to come, but will we get an extra walk or drive put in? Of course not, we've already been told that all new delivery points will be absorbed even though there is no more room to put these dp's in the areas where these have been opened.
Not only that, but yesterday we had 773 tracked items in our office and that's without the 48 yorks of packets and 500+ special deliveries.
SO, ROYAL MAIL AND BACKED UP BY THE CWU, DONT TRY AND TELL US THAT MAIL VOLUMES ARE DROPPING, WHEN CLEARLY THEY ARE NOT, DO THE MATHS!

Yeh but these folk had to move from somewhere, so taking the country as a whole you could agree letters maybe falling, (but of course time consuming items are up).

[masterblaster]

I'm sure when i joined the business in 2004 i watched a video in my induction, allan leighton (remember him) saying that mail would volume would fall 10% per year so really we should have no mail whatsoever by now

No quite right, as 10% is year on year I would imagine, should be about 35% of 2004 levels -which is still bollo**s

[feduppostie]

back in the day mail was weighed out of the mail centre and also weighed into the delivery office when it arrived this allowed the mail volumes to be recorded and checked accurately, average fill figures were used but because it was well controlled at every point it wasn't far off

then the weighing in/out stopped

we still have average fill figures but these change every six months or so and are nowhere near the real capacity of the letters, flats or packets received

It was after the weighing stopped that the 'mail is down' stuff began

some mail is down yes, stamped mail but as pointed out earlier staff volumes are also down massively and other types of mail are up

it would be very interesting to see the figures should weighing in/out ever come back