Royal Mail!!

[Lettuceandtomatoes]

Was expecting a parcel today, 24 hour tracked, in all day only to discover a card through the door. I didn’t hear the knock even the dog didn’t. Went online to redirect only to find ‘sorry something went wrong’. Called them and the earliest is December 5th. This is such rubbish and sick to death of the tap and scarper approach with them.

I think this is one of the reasons they are striking though, that they now have much less time to complete their rounds and therefore the service is suffering.

I think plenty of people have said, individually, that their own postie is lovely. But those lovely posties aren’t always the ones delivering. It’s also apparent that, for whatever reason, some of them are not attempting to alert householders to their presence. Which is the issue, because if you receive one of their ‘missed you’ cards, not only do you have to go and collect it, you have to find out when and if your local sorting office is actually open to receive visitors.

Theoretically, you can have parcel dates altered. In practice, that doesn’t work, presumably because the postie doesn’t receive the message about the change. It’s pointless complaining, because complaints go into a black hole and are never heard of again.

RM no longer have a monopoly on a postal delivery service and need to consider how their ‘service’ is delivered, because there are choices these days.

We had to go to a post office the other day. As is often the case now, it’s in a branch of WH Smith. There were four cashier places, two of which were manned and a queue of 12 people. One of those abruptly left and wasn’t replaced, meaning the queue got ever longer. Not even lunch break time. Customer service is responding to need. That’s not customer service.

And giving them more time is going to make RM even less profitable, I'm not saying its a fair world but evri/ yodel/ amazon etc have changed the landscape and no one is going to pay RM more money to deliver less parcels when they can get a better service from their competitors. This is what RM management are paid to see and what CWU are blind to cos ' not fair'. But stomping your foot saying not fair does not suddenly make the business profitable.

Basically if the other couriers can make it work they'll take over the market whether quickly or slowly, that's how it works and with all the strikes it will hasten it.

Royal Mail are a pretty good brand imo but the pp is right the landscape has changed a lot. On one hand alternative delivery faster and lower cost plus use of email / text etc

Things have changed a fair bit over time

I'm not saying its a fair world but evri/ yodel/ amazon etc have changed the landscape and no one is going to pay RM more money to deliver less parcels when they can get a better service from their competitors.

But Evri and Yodel don't provide a great service either. There's a village near us that hasn't had any Evri deliveries since September as they don't have any drivers!

thank you for confirming what we all knew 🤣

I don't buy much online so haven't had a huge amount of experience with Royal Mail but have been surprised over the past few months to see the delivery van around my housing estate as late as 6pm and also deliveries on Sundays.

Our work postie who collects at 4pm said he's been told by 'head office' not to pick up any 2nd class or 48 hour tracked mail or parcels. He ignored HO but I imagine there would be plenty who wouldn't ignore such a bizarre instruction. This is an area with a big business community and one factory had over 60 small parcels for 48 hour tracked ! I'm convinced its 'management' who are the cause of Royal Mail problems and not the people on the ground.

People don't seem to realise that one of the main reasons the posties are striking is due to the cost-cutting measures that are responsible for the decline in service standards.
So yes, the posties agree with you that the service isn't good enough! RM wants to make it even worse!

We had to go to a post office the other day. As is often the case now, it’s in a branch of WH Smith.
@Bluevelvetsofa The Post Office and Royal Mail are two completely separate businesses. It is the postmen (Royal Mail) that are on strike.

It’s not just the post men is it? Or is that the name for all Royal Mail staff? My parcel has been stuck on the other end of the country for a few days so I thought the whole supply chain was on strike.

Different divisions are striking on different days.

You think that's bad?

I bought DH a very rare record for Christmas from eBay, he has wanted it for years.

Seller paid by tracked RM delivery with signed for, which I paid extra for.

Was told to expect my parcel between 4 and 5pm so made plans to be in.

At 1pm got a message to say my parcel was delivered. Handed to resident.

No one was home. So I check the tracking and not only did they not get a signature, the photo is of some random doorstep, with the front door open, with a person's feet in it. Not my house. Not my door. Not my feet. Doesn't even look like the doorsteps of houses on my street.

So I contact RM. They won't speak to me. I am not the person they have the contract with because I'm not the seller. So I contact seller who is not impressed, and I think possibly at first thinks I'm pulling a fast one until I sent him a photo of my doorstep and suggests he Google Street view my street so he can see these are definitely not the style of homes on our street. Or even in my village.

He gets back to me after speaking to RM, they admit they fucked up, and that they've no idea where their postman has dropped my parcel at. He's clueless. And new. And forgot to get the signature. (Personally? I think he's a bloody toerag thief handing parcels over to a house he is linked to, otherwise he's a moron.)

So, I got a refund but I'm so annoyed because the likelihood of me finding another is nil and poor seller has now been told to fill out a form by RM for a refund and repayment.

They're bloody getting as bad as Hermes.

Currently they are delivering within a few days at a lower price than RM as a small eBay seller that's better for me than RM I just can't take the hit on refunds with this strikes. After 4 days ebay forces you to refund now.

But Evri and Yodel don't provide a great service either. There's a village near us that hasn't had any Evri deliveries since September as they don't have any drivers!

Exactly. It's hilarious (but not really) how all our nationalised services are being sold off to private investors and companies (and I include British Gas in this) because it allegedly opens the market up to competition so the customer supposedly gets a better deal and businesses will apparently get super competitive in the hope that they can gain your custom.

What really happens is that they all end up being equally shit with appalling customer service while raking in huge profits for their shareholders.

I find DPD pretty good, probably due to the app and friendly delivery guy who does our route

RM is ok , letters yes, packages ok but slow