to be increasingly hacked off with the up-selling at the post office?

[mightywoman]

It's 20 bloody questions for any transaction you want to do. What's in the parcel? What's the value? Would you like insurance? etc etc ... BUT what pisses me off more than anything is the way they quote you a price for a more expensive posting service than you have asked for and only when you say 'is that the cheapest?' do they say 'oh no, standard parcel rate is less ...' I am well able for their tactics but I repeatedly see elderly customers getting bamboozled and flummoxed by it all. It drives me nuts. I asked the boss about it once and he said the post office bosses insist they do it and send mystery shoppers in to make sure they do. Can this really be true???

I don’t know, but it drives me nuts. I recently had to intervene for an old lady who was being blatantly lied to about the cheapest service. Twice she asked if there was a cheaper service than SD and they were fobbing her off.

And don’t get me started on the manager who said I couldn’t send a package to Israel because it wasn’t a country. I assumed he was making some political statement, but turned out he was spelling it with an E so it didn’t show up on his list. Standards have plummeted since it moved into WH Smiths.

Yep all true

I’m in retail and we have a list of things we had to say
At the shop door
On the shop floor
And on the till

On the till is the worst as even if someone is buying something under a £1 you still have to upsell 3 items

If a mystery shopper comes in and anyone misses out one of the lines then everyone on the shift gets in trouble even if they did their part

They absolutely will have mystery shopper who will evaluate them and let them know if they're not doing the brand standards. I haven't worked in a post office but this is really really common practice. When I worked in a bar all spirits would be assumed to be doubles unless specifically mentioned that they wanted a single. We had mystery shoppers in all the time who checked this and reported back if we didnt

My local one no longer has passport forms out. They make you take a number and queue for the counter so they can try to flog their check and send service.

Well. Am totally gobsmacked at the doubles Biancadelriosback!! That should be illegal!!

My post office is a family run shop, not in a WHS, so at least they're not asking if I want a Telegraph and a bar of chocolate as well. I suppose I should think myself lucky!

Royal Mail insist they MUST ask what’s in the parcel - they can get in serious trouble for not due to dangerous goods being sent.
The upselling is unfortunately the only way to keep them afloat. It’s all about sales due to the lovely government ... having a nice leisurely chat with an old dear doesn’t pay. Blame them

mightywoman Definitely! Although I wouldn’t be surprised if that did end up happening

I always know if a customer comes from a retail background as they always say thank you for asking but no Thoes customers actually really make my day as obviously from both sides of it, it’s very annoying especially as it happens in every shop you go in these days

I work in the post office. We have to ask about contents to ensure there's nothing on the prohibited/restricted list as per the dangerous goods act.

And if someone says it's valuable or important then I will offer the more expensive options. In some instances SD or SF are the cheapest options that cover the item in question but I will let them know that there are cheaper options but that they come without cover.

We have to do things in line with company standards. Even awful Smith's franchise employees like me. (Who had the same training and does the same job as my crown colleagues who also have to follow dangerous goods protocol and ensure the correct service if offers to the customer)

And yes. We do get mystery shopped. Hoping I'm not the one to get the December one this year. As if Christmas in the Post Office isn't stressful enough!

Yep, I know someone who runs one, all true unfortunately.

I avoid this where possible by using the machines- finally the Post Office has caught up with technology. However, this is not an option at many Post Offices, or for some who lost theirs when about a third of branches were closed when Adam Crozier and Allan Leighton ran the Royal Mail.

I am wise to the Post Office trick of being told the price for the most expensive option and not being offered another choice.

I know what my package will cost by weighing it and putting stamps on. It gets handed over and a POP issued. As long as there is nothing in there on the prohibited list there is actually no obligation for you to disclose the contents, only to confirm that there is nothing on the prohibited list inside. However, if asked my parcel always contains slippers, never anything expensive due to the assistant that once asked and was told exactly what was in it, and the package was put aside. It never arrived.

My elderly neighbour has been upsold a lot of times and told me about it one day, so I told her to check on the Royal Mail website for the correct price before she went to post her parcels. Interestingly she also post a lot of slippers. She resents the intrusion as she knows she isn't posting anything prohibited.

I know it is to make money but if the prices were lower in the first place people wouldn't have defected to Hermes and Yodel.

I made the mistake of using their machine service. It's supposed to be self service but it's actually fiendishly difficult to use. They then allocate some poor woman to manage to machines at once and up sell simultaneously to both customers. it's a prime example of technology making our lives worse.

The number of questions she asked me was hilarious. Just to post a letter she tried to sell me a more expensive next day delivery first. Apparently first class doesn't get there very quickly anymore. So I told her I take my chances on it not getting there tomorrow. She then tried to sell me: Utilities , broadband, a mortgage, travel money, insurance. After I turned down all of these she asked me if I wanted to take any literature away with me to look at later. I lost count of the number of times I said no.

I've got the confidence at the Intelligence to just say no I'm not sure that everybody would be in the same boat and might start to get railroaded into discussions they don't want to be having . I'm surprised that it's allowed.