Royal Mail Special delivery items - (During the Strikes)

scorpio13

Hi guys, does anyone know if Royal Mail Special delivery items will still be delivered during the strikes or is it best to arrange a Courier collection during these periods?

Also, i do have a Special delivery item due for posting tomorrow (Thurs) to arrive for Friday before 1pm.........seeing as the strike officially starts at Noon tomorrow, will the item still get there for Friday?

Thanks for any replies!

aeuerby

Royal mail are still going to deliver special delivery items but are suspending the next day guaranteed delivery.

Hintza

Having chatted to the local depot manager here he reckons at the start SD should be OK (with managers delivering) but reckons it will be gridlock as the strike progresses.

It will certainly not be guaranteed though. But I would hope Friday deliveries will be OK at least.

Can you not post your item today? I'll be doing a run around 4pm to get as much out as possble today.

rare_stuff

I'm not sure bunging stuff in the post today is such a great idea, as it will likely sit there until next Wednesday with stuff being added to the top of the pile, so will be dealt with last! At least this is what others were expereincing during the last strikes.
I'm not going to heed my own advice though, as my stuff isn't breakable or perishable, though I am going to email my customers to explain that items may be delayed as a result.

shelovestobuystuff

They still get the special delivery stuff out and try to get it there on time during strikes.My local post office,during the last batch of strikes told me that even when no-one else is there,the managers don,t strike and they get the special delivery stuff on its way,even driving it themselves to the nearest depo where the managers there take over.
Everything else though will pile up and I am expecting another period of total fiasco and of being inundated with customer complaints at my mail order delivery times once again.

JohalaReewi

Hintza wrote: »

It will certainly not be guaranteed though. But I would hope Friday deliveries will be OK at least.

I bet the premium you get charged for "next day" delivery will still be guaranteed during the strike.

custardy

the 'premium' covers the whole service being totally seperate.
they are hardly going to produce seperate price lists for strike periods

now as stated they do try and get SD items sorted and sent out and on the whole do.
part of the problems from last were down to sorting errors.
basically you have guys sorting who have never or not for years done the sorting.
all it takes is for a batch of SD items to go on the wrong lorry and theres no way of it being there next day(at a non local level)
as said the bulk is done by managers,however again errors can happen and some mistakes on the tracking side as well

for the last strikes the managers at my office delivered all the SD items to my knowledge however there were some scanning issues.
also we recieved a batch of special deliverys for jersey!!which obviously had no way of making it from edinburgh.

soolin

RM say this about SD:

We will endeavour to deliver Special Delivery items on the due day, however we have suspended money back guarantees for items posted on 4th October onwards. These guarantees will be restored as soon as we are confident we can offer our normal high quality service.

http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/content1?catId=1000002&mediaId=51600692&campaignid=update

BlondeHeadOn

We haven't had any post today yet - has the strike started early? I am expecting a couple of smallish parcels, and hope I don't have to wait until next week before they are delivered......

On their website Royal Mail say:
"The first [strike] will begin at lunchtime on Thursday 4th October and ends at lunchtime on Saturday 6th October. The second will begin in the early hours of Monday 8th October, ending in the early hours of Wednesday 10th October"

Is it just me, or does that read as though I can't expect any post for a whole week?

:rolleyes:

custardy

on a 2 days strike it will(at a guesstimate) take around 3-4 days to clear.
most likely the big companys throwing out mailsort in large volumes will have pushed it through this week.

scorpio13

Hintza wrote: »

Can you not post your item today? I'll be doing a run around 4pm to get as much out as possble today.

Not really, i will be posting more items (mostly 1st class) tomorrow - so naturally wanted to post them all on the same day, to save making 2 trips to the post office.

I'll just have to inform the customer that their RM Special delivery item 'could' get there the next day........but to expect delays, due to the strike.