MRM.COM : What about later delivery times?

[POSTMAN]

https://www.myroyalmail.com/news/2017/0 ... -questions" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We recently held a number of briefing sessions for frontline managers providing information about our negotiations with CWU.

We sent a brief giving you all the information you need, while earlier this week we sent a ‘Your questions answered’ document.

One of the questions people have been asking is whether we’ll be introducing later delivery times. Here’s the information we provided.

We have to make changes to the way we work. Our customers are demanding it.

They want their items faster. They want longer delivery times during the day and early evening. They want to access our network later and later in the evening – even beyond midnight – to secure next day delivery. If we don’t do this, others will.

For example, Hermes worked with Next to introduce an ‘order by midnight for next day delivery’ service. That’s the world we live in. We need to be able to compete for this kind of traffic. We have been working with the CWU to see if:

1. We can achieve later acceptance times into our mail centres, and;

2. What impact this would have on the rest of our operation, including delivery times.

Many competitors pay around the National Living Wage - £7.50 an hour. We are proud to pay 45-50% more than this. But, because our competitors pay less, they often charge less than us. We need to take advantage of our unique place in the market – that we can deliver letters and parcels together.

We normally only deliver to addresses once. Moving to a two tier delivery (on the existing labour model) is not financially viable.

It would increase the cost per item and make us uncompetitive.

We are continuing to work with the CWU to find a workable solution.

[Lounge Lizard]

"Our customers are demanding it.They want their items faster" means "our business customers sending parcels are 'demanding' next day delivery without paying for Special Delivery" no matter that for households across the country having their daily mail delivered afternoon rather than morning is a "slower" not a "faster" service.

[ernieshoe]

"Our customers are demanding it.They want their items faster" means "our business customers sending parcels are 'demanding' next day delivery without paying for Special Delivery" no matter that for households across the country having their daily mail delivered afternoon rather than morning is a "slower" not a "faster" service.

The majority of householders are unaware what time they get their mail - they are out at work.
Do you still not get this - less and less important mail is delivered year on year.
arrrghhh

Parcels are the future !
Next Day Delivery is where the profits can be made.
Later acceptance time means later deliveries BUT Parcels would still be delivered next day.

[SpacePhoenix]

All 9am specials would probably fail as by moving the dispatches back a couple of hours will mean that the lorries doing runs to deliveries will catch the morning rush hour traffic.

[Lounge Lizard]

"Our customers are demanding it.They want their items faster" means "our business customers sending parcels are 'demanding' next day delivery without paying for Special Delivery" no matter that for households across the country having their daily mail delivered afternoon rather than morning is a "slower" not a "faster" service.

The majority of householders are unaware what time they get their mail - they are out at work.
Do you still not get this - less and less important mail is delivered year on year.
arrrghhh

Parcels are the future !
Next Day Delivery is where the profits can be made.
Later acceptance time means later deliveries BUT Parcels would still be delivered next day.

Ernie,
Yes, if you think Royal Mail's more about parcels than letters.
But day after day I deliver many more letters than parcels.

[Ozzvaldo]

The majority of householders are unaware what time they get their mail - they are out at work.
Do you still not get this - less and less important mail is delivered year on year.
arrrghhh

Parcels are the future !
Next Day Delivery is where the profits can be made.
Later acceptance time means later deliveries BUT Parcels would still be delivered next day.

Not only that, but the majority of householders that are unaware of what time they get their mail because they are out at work, will also presumably be unaware of when we knock on their doors with the parcels that we are told they desperately want delivered within 24 hours....because they will be out at work.

[mark.cup]

Remember that magical time when we knocked on doors and either woke people up or caught them having their breakfast before work? Now a days with our fantastic hours scheduled to miss 95% of customers. Then in the summer we get sun safety leaflets basically saying you will die if out between 12 and 3 yet we do most of our days work exactly at this time...

Some of these idiots at the top really should come and try this s#it on a daily basis there's not many days I don't go home and collapse in a heap

[greengiant]

Remember that magical time when we knocked on doors and either woke people up or caught them having their breakfast before work? Now a days with our fantastic hours scheduled to miss 95% of customers. Then in the summer we get sun safety leaflets basically saying you will die if out between 12 and 3 yet we do most of our days work exactly at this time...

Some of these idiots at the top really should come and try this s#it on a daily basis there's not many days I don't go home and collapse in a heap

Perhaps we'll be working 5pm till 10:30pm eventually!

[BeamishStout]

We have to make changes to the way we work. Our customers are demanding it.

They want their items faster. They want longer delivery times during the day and early evening. They want to access our network later and later in the evening – even beyond midnight – to secure next day delivery. If we don’t do this, others will.

For example, Hermes worked with Next to introduce an ‘order by midnight for next day delivery’ service. That’s the world we live in.

We were told in July that parcel volumes rose by 5% year-on-year so obviously some/many of our customers are happy to use RM to deliver their parcels with the existing last time of acceptance.

But let us suppose that RM get their way and get more business through later acceptance. That would mean that deliveries would take even longer to deliver all these extra parcels that punters are crying out for. How many extra (parcels) and how much longer (time) would this take? Bet the bean counters have an idea but this is not being shared And if the extra volume is minimal through LAT then why go through the bother

[Lincox]

The CWU should be insisting on unsocial hours increments to pay. Pretty obvious that the job will be divided into different shift patterns.

[parforthewalk]

The CWU should be insisting on unsocial hours increments to pay. Pretty obvious that the job will be divided into different shift patterns.

Yes would agree with that.

Perhaps a combined two stage delivery system..i.e.letters (only) delivered between 1pm & 4pm with return to office for UTR (under the roof work) & M/R. Followed by parcel (only) delivery from 6pm - 9pm (8-9pm special/premium delivery!..my wife actually suggested this!!).

However this would have implications for collections, which would still require extra vans with additional costs.
This could enable F/T work for the letter & parcel delivery element & part time work for the collection element.

Would the M/C's however be able to work with this model?
Over to Space Phoenix for quality input!

All said & done, what is to stop the competition doing the same thing but on cheaper rates..It surely still defaults to race to the bottom

[Phantom]

The majority of people arrive home from work between 5-6:30pm - if we are delivering till half 4 or 5 then we will still miss them - Parcels need to be delivered from 7am in order to catch people in. Business mail also needs to be delivered early before the working day starts or just after. Later deliveries will push businesses on to email or other forms of communication ( I do think this is Royal Mails plan as it would then allow them to shrink the business).

I deliver to a lot of businesses and people who work from home who have had no choice but to use other forms of communication because Royal Mail can't deliver early enough like we use to.

The board are a f***ing shambles!!!

[Lincox]

Possibly but then again this could be said for any competing businesses. The businesses that thrive and make money are those that have the leadership and foresight to think ahead of the competition and not continually making cuts to remain competitive by continually cutting labour costs to maintain outdated practices. This is Moya Greene to a tee and is also the political agenda that has been pushed in this country since 2010.

[SpacePhoenix]

It's going to be down to if RM want sequencing to not start until 95% of the mail is available and if they move the pipeline back a couple of hours. If the two both happen then we probably won't start sequencing till around 07:00, probably later then that on a busy day. On a busy day with some batches there'll be physically too much mail to run in one go so the batch will have to be run in 2 gos, approx 40mins a time. On a busy day if RM get their way with pipeline changes and wanting is to not start sequencing until 95% of the mail is available, there'll be only 2 viable options:

1) We cut down on the amount that we sequence, the rest going to the DO unsequenced
2) We sequence all the mail but some batches would have to be sent through to the DO without being sequenced

Any other option would result in some DOs not getting their sequenced mail till after 17:00, probably later on a busy day. The use of iLSMs and IMPs won't be an option as later in the day they'll be running outward sort plans

[LouBarlow]

I think rather than worrying about what times people are home (which is an impossible job in itself) Royal Mail should team up with the company who produce those parcel-safe devices, and offer them at ridiculously knocked down prices, so we don't even have to knock any more.