Royal Mail - 120,000 Complaints in 3 months

frequencycast

For those of you on here who've had problems with Royal Mail, there's an interesting piece on the Daily Mirror website stating that there have been over 120,000 complaints in the first three months of the year, and it paid out £5.1million compensation for lost items in 2009.

I'm a newbie, and not allowed to post the URL, so Google "Royal Mail sees complaints about lost post soar by 37%" for the story and info on the complaints

My colleague is one of the 120,000 - He's been fighting with Royal Mail since January, and ended up taking them to small claims court when they refused to give him a refund. They've just settled out of court, including expenses. It shows that complaining, and sticking with it, can work!

Good luck to the other 119,999 !!

wealdroam

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arcon5

I wonder what the actual statistics are for compensation payout in 2009 and 2010. 'Complains about lost post' doesn't necessarily mean more items are being lost -- it could mean more buyers aswell as sellers are complaining.

I've always found royalmail to be a hite or miss, it will arrive in either 1 day or 10 days.

Articles like this should be taken with a pinch of salt. Headlines also like 'royalmail lost 14million letters last year' -- but this then only works out at about 0.7% of mail.
From that figure also take away claims made by fraudulents buyers and seller.

Snakeeyes21

120,000 complaints out of 4 - 500 million letters delivered in that time...

Id say thats well below average for complais towards a company.

fluffnutter

RM's going to receive a lot of complaints simply because their operation is so enormous. It might be useful to compare number of complaints with recent years, but even this will be flawed unless the amount of post they deal with remains static. Similarly you can't compare them with other companies because they're the only one.

Basically, these figures are pretty meaningless.

frequencycast

wealdroam wrote: »

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frequencycast

fluffnutter wrote: »

It might be useful to compare number of complaints with recent years, but even this will be flawed unless the amount of post they deal with remains static.

To be fair, the articles in the Telegraph and Mirror do make that comparison:

From the Mirror: "This was a 37% rise on the same period in 2010 and the worst set of quarterly figures since 2008. The Royal Mail paid £5.1million compensation for lost items in 2009 – almost £100,000 every week."

As for the amount of mail, according to the Telegraph, rather than remaining static, volume is dropping:

"The complaint figures for lost post come against a backdrop of a sharp fall in the number of items delivered daily by the Royal Mail – down almost 25 per cent in the last five years."

SpendlessKaren

Royal Mail is going from bad to worse. I sent a Recorded Delivery package on 13 July and it still hasn't been delivered !!!

custardy

frequencycast wrote: »

To be fair, the articles in the Telegraph and Mirror do make that comparison:

From the Mirror: "This was a 37% rise on the same period in 2010 and the worst set of quarterly figures since 2008. The Royal Mail paid £5.1million compensation for lost items in 2009 – almost £100,000 every week."

As for the amount of mail, according to the Telegraph, rather than remaining static, volume is dropping:

"The complaint figures for lost post come against a backdrop of a sharp fall in the number of items delivered daily by the Royal Mail – down almost 25 per cent in the last five years."

no surprise
for years the business ran with plenty of staff to provide an artificially good service
over the last decade or so the staff levels have been cut and profits have been squeezed
so now complaints are up
also some of those complaints will be non complaints
I could list many (all genuine)
postie doesnt stop to talk to customers
postie walks too loudly
postie refused to help push a car
postie is foreign

fluffnutter

custardy wrote: »

no surprise
for years the business ran with plenty of staff to provide an artificially good service
over the last decade or so the staff levels have been cut and profits have been squeezed
so now complaints are up

That's the thing isn't it? People expect the same level of service despite the budget being cut year on year.

All part of the plan to privatise it, no doubt... 'Look! Royal Mail's rubbish! Think how much better it would be if a private company got hold of it, and showed those workshy public workers a thing or two!'. Bingo. You've got public support and can go ahead without fear of opposition.

Low_Resolution

custardy wrote: »

postie walks too loudly
postie refused to help push a car
postie is foreign

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: