Royal Mail Rivals

pace73

Thought i would defend the RM as I am a postie. Most of the points made are fairly accurate but some of the problems delivering mail are human error which will happen whoever is delivering your mail. Competition is good for the consumer but the exercise of delivering post has many stages and the more companies involved fighting for custom (and profit) may cause a lot more problems than there currently are. Royal Mail deal with about 80 millions items A DAY so there are going to be problems in the process but you wouldn't believe how many items we deal with that are wrongly addressed, inappropriately packaged, not enough postage paid, recipients of mail moved with no senders address on the parcel, etc. I know the system is not perfect but by this time next year alot of people will realise RM didn't do a bad job.

Gasb4g

Royal Mail needs a kick up the back side, maybe a bit of healthy competition will do them good.... But I doubt it

trafalgar_2

pace73 wrote:

Thought i would defend the RM as I am a postie. Most of the points made are fairly accurate but some of the problems delivering mail are human error which will happen whoever is delivering your mail. Competition is good for the consumer but the exercise of delivering post has many stages and the more companies involved fighting for custom (and profit) may cause a lot more problems than there currently are. Royal Mail deal with about 80 millions items A DAY so there are going to be problems in the process but you wouldn't believe how many items we deal with that are wrongly addressed, inappropriately packaged, not enough postage paid, recipients of mail moved with no senders address on the parcel, etc. I know the system is not perfect but by this time next year alot of people will realise RM didn't do a bad job.

I have no problems with my normal postman at all .........I think they do a great job...................now when the parcel men come later ,they must be hand picked to not know what a bell is or how to knock on a door:rolleyes:
but overall I think it will be a disaster and RM should stay as it is.

Balloons_By_Post_2

First of all I must say a big thank-u to RM for providing us with a 99% good service via their Recorded and Special Delivery services. Letter post is something rather different.

The new post office structure is of great concern to us. The predicted changes for post to be charged by size and not weight may well be the end of us. After all, who will want to pay more for the postage than the actual article? We also mainly send to homes.

Perhaps in light of their financial problems Royal Mail could take up the same money/labour saving systems as the Portuguese used to have (and may still have) where you'd get a stamp from a tiny post van; you had to stick it on by using the pot of glue provided and the van would then drive off with your letter.
Or like the Brazilian country post boxes which were situated over a large, deep hole and you'd post your letter into a bottomless box.

I think Vinegar Mary summed it up when she said, the increase in postage charges on April 7th is to cover the rising cost of storage. :rotfl:

Former_MSE_Andrea

Below are the results to our previous poll. Thanks to the 1112 participants who took part in this poll.

Previous Poll Topic: Poll started 29 March: The Royal Mail has lost its monopoly on delivering our post, possibly starting from next year. If other companies were to set up different coloured boxes next to the traditional red Royal Mail ones, would you:

c. Always check the cheapest provider for the type of mail you're sending? 51.1% - (570 Votes)
a. Stick with the Royal Mail? 38.5% - (430 Votes)
d. I don’t send post, e-mail is much cheaper. 5.9% - (67 Votes)
b. Use one of the new providers and stay with them? 3.9% - (45 Votes)

Total Votes: 1112

blackadder

whilst competition is good for the consumer the point made earlier about RM still delivering the mail is the most important if your priority is reliability over cost. If where you live the quality of RM deliveries is poor then this will only get worse when competitors collect the mail from companies and dump it at delivery offices for RM to finish the job as they will inevitably under cut the price charged by RM and consequently there will be less money in the coffers to employ delivery staff, how early in the day will the mail be delivered then ?
What is described as competition is not true competition at all as the general public will not have access to the services offered by others and they would not be interested in providing that service as it makes little or no money. The real profit comes from transporting bulk mail such as utility bills, catalogues, bank statements and the like from the sender to the mail processing centre and that is exactly where dhl, lynx et al are going to position themselves


whilst I appreciate there is often sub standard service from RM I fail to see how competition in the market for letters in it's current form will improve matters.

regarding the mail being delivered at 5pm, then I think gratitude rather than criticism would be more appropriate as full time postpersons hours are typically 0500-1300 and as such they would have been working way past their finish time in order to complete the job ( althought they would have been paid overtime :rolleyes: )

daviemac

Thought I would put my tuppence worth in as I am also a postie (sorting office side of things) and would like to make a few points of note. Firstly I welcome some kind of competition because as most people are aware, it can, at at the end of the day, make or break a company, and at the least make them more competitive. We all know that RM is not perfect by a long shot and in a modern business climate in the UK it is probably the last of the dinasauric companies left due to its size and geographical extreme's it has to cover, but therein lies the problem. We are given the task by the government of potentially delivering mail to any UK address on any given day bar Sundays and of course things will go wrong. On average 80 million items per day, everyday, can you tell me of any other company which tries to handle these sort of volumes day in day out and can hold their hand up and say they don't make mistakes? (and I don't mean factorys churning out thousands of plastic forks or something else just as meniable!) Last thought. Picture this. You're on a nightshift and you start at ten o'clock. You sit, (or stand because the seats are like sitting on little bags of cememt after about five minutes!) and your task is to sort thousands of letters into 48 pidgeon holes for almost the whole night long till about six in the morning. Do you think you could do that for five nights a week, forty seven weeks of the year without making sorting errors? I'll bet not. Or go into work at 4:30am. five days a week no matter what or how you feel and go out in all weathers and never miss prep one of your sorting boxes or put the wrong letter through the wrong letter box? I'll bet not again. Sorting and delivering mail still invloves a massive human effort in relation to machinary or technical innovation that is so much a part of todays modern industry methods. Ok, we all need "kicks up the backsides" from time to time.But before you go and criticise RM or anybody else, take a good look at your own job or lifestyle. Are you perfect?

gravitytolls

I can buy a stamp for around 30p and it's usually delivered by the next morning, to anywhere in the country, though I live in a village, and sometimes I miss last post.

I think it's a pretty good service, and darn cheap too.

I must say though, that I wish the new postie would deliver myu mail to me and not all over hte village and vice versa. Still I've made 2 new friends because of it, so maybe it's not so bad.