Spill the beans... on cutting Post Office queues (revisited)

siany_d

standard parcels is a royal mail service and therefore you would use a normal royal mail claim form

siany_d

the post office branch gets nothing for paypal items!

chja

siany_d wrote: »

i am a post office manager, and am one of many who is not a royal mail employee! Its bad enough that people print their postage at home already without being encouraged to find other ways to not use your post office. Business is already on a downward spiral, we need more people through the doors not less or we will start to see more closures. Post Offices are not a service, they are a business whether we like it or not. We get paid nothing for parcels that have online postage affixed, yet are expected to check that they have sufficient postage on them and face anger/abuse if we tell the "customer" that it is incorrectly priced.
Use your local post office or lose it, when its gone where will you take your prepaid parcel then???:mad:

Fair shout - I've always assumed my Local PO gets some cut of the postage, so don't use the pre-printed Paypal thing.

johnjp

Stamps of all denominations and quantities can be bought online with free delivery:- http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/shop?catId=9300091

flipper_2010

Strapped wrote: »

:T Agree 100%. Just yesterday I could be found dropping off my parcels (only 10 yesterday) on the way to take my children out, popped back in on the way home to pay and pick up the proof of postages. I love our local postmistress. Apparently I'm the only person who sends parcels in the village except at Christmas, so I'm pretty sure the feeling's mutual lol. They would've closed her down by now if the village had a bus service (apparently they can't close it without one, because the pensioners wouldn't be able to pick up their pensions). I hope we don't get a bus service!

Wouldn't be so sure about that. We don't have a bus service and ours still closed down and they said the next one is only 4 miles away, how are the old people supposed to walk 4 miles!

amcluesent

Was in my local PO this morning, getting CoPs. Having a 'blether' at the window was some chap, who obviously thought the teller was hanging on his every word while the rest of us in the queue drummed our fingers.

40 minutes later, arrived at the the basket-only till in Sainsbury and Mr 'life and soul of the party' was laughing and joking with woman on the till. !!!!!!! :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

JCS1

siany_d wrote: »

i am a post office manager, and am one of many who is not a royal mail employee! Its bad enough that people print their postage at home already without being encouraged to find other ways to not use your post office. Business is already on a downward spiral, we need more people through the doors not less or we will start to see more closures. Post Offices are not a service, they are a business whether we like it or not. We get paid nothing for parcels that have online postage affixed, yet are expected to check that they have sufficient postage on them and face anger/abuse if we tell the "customer" that it is incorrectly priced.
Use your local post office or lose it, when its gone where will you take your prepaid parcel then???:mad:

And as a business they need good customer service - which means I shouldn't have to queue for 45 minutes in my lunch hour to post 2 items.

I'm all for supporting local post offices, but examples like the one I've quoted are all too common and do make you consider alternatives.

pre123

leonotis wrote: »

Well you just keep on saying "you already have it" and before long you will have "had it"!
Just like any other business in the 21st century the Post Office has to make a profit to survive- it's been a "walk over " for far too long and now this push to be profitable is what all this selling is about.

It is more fool you really not to listen, because many of our products are now "best buys" and we have saved lots of people lots of money -Post Office products are often now recommended by Martin!!You could well be missing out for all you know-if we don't take the opportunity to speak to customers face to face many would never be aware of the vast array of good products we now can offer.

Post Office staff don't think continual selling is a bundle of fun either, I can tell you, but it's something that has to be done if we are to survive.

Contrary to another post, the Post Office does not make anything at all if you tax your car online- it all goes to DVLA who make even more profit than they already do as they don't pay anything to Post Office out of your payment.

Queuing is annoying I agree,but we counter staff do our very best, Banks often have long queues with only 1 or 2 serving but no one complains there!!!
Times are a changing and Post Office is trying to catch up.
When we've finally "had it " please don't complain!!
Crown Office counter clerk.

I agree with the post office being behind the times with many things and they need to and have started to change and i work for them..

I was trying to refer to some branchs that do not seem to have the mental ability to link products to transactions.. eg if you buy euros, try travel insurance and credit card.. but ive heard branchs that try selling homephone, over 50's cover, car insurance etc etc all in the same transaction which seems a waste of time for the customers and counter clerk as they will have started to ignore them after 1 or 2 products.

siany_d

JCS1 wrote: »

And as a business they need good customer service - which means I shouldn't have to queue for 45 minutes in my lunch hour to post 2 items.

I'm all for supporting local post offices, but examples like the one I've quoted are all too common and do make you consider alternatives.

nobody in an ideal world should ever have to queue, but if people used their branches more throughout the whole day/week then there would be more money to hire extra staff.
Waiting in a queue does not equal bad customer service, there is no way to predict most busy spells in branch and we cant have staff hanging around "just incase".
We queue everywhere, at the bank, in the supermarket, for petrol but people seem to accept that.
My team work hard to ensure they give great service ( i appreciate there are some exceptions in other branches), it is hard going for them when there is a long queue, but we love our job and we are good at it, but the public need to meet us halfway, dont sit at home moaning when branches are closed and you only pop in twice a year to buy a book of stamps. Use us!
We can offer a wide range of bill payments, most free of charge.
0% commission currency and travellers cheques
passport, driving licence check and send
car insurance, credit cards, travel insurance, pet insurance
gift vouchers,
great savings products
phone service
broadband

We offer so much and so many of you dont have any clue. We need you to use us so we dont disappear altogether

JCS1

Big queues does equal poor customer service. I might queue at the bank, supermarket, petrol station, but not for 45 minutes - and if the queue is big I don't go there again and take my custom elsewhere. The examples you have given have introduced ideas to cut queue times, the bank has the fast deposit, the supermarket has self scan/basket only checkouts and the petrol stations pay at pump, yet the post office does not appear to bring in changes to make things better or quicker for the customer.

My local main post office has people queuing out of the door most lunchtimes - yet they don't stagger lunches or arrange the rota so people are there to cover.