Kantar - Royal Mail Monitoring and Posting Panel

custardy

Anneblair43 wrote: »

I have taken part in a few Kantar TNS Royal mail posting panels, the ones where you record sent and delivered mail.
In the guide lines you are asked to report any instance when you think the Royal Mail Postal Staff have become aware that SMARTS are contained in the post delivered to you, they do say that you may be removed from the survey { note the singular use of the word survey}.
In July I received two such items { one an envelope that that not be sealed by the poster and the other a letter that had been totally mangled by the Royal Mail}, in both instances the smart was clearly visible and I reported this to Kantar TNS.
I did expect to be pulled from this particular survey but got a shock when told that I am now not able to take part in any surveys.
I argued why was I being penalised for my honestly?? but was told that my Post code is now known to Royal Mail and unless I could get a new post code I could not take part in any more surveys including also Correctly delivered and Unaddressed Mail.
Since I have no intention of moving house just to take part in Kantar surveys, I asked for some form of compensation, this was refused.
I am very annoyed at this as I have been penalised for being honest, whilst the money lost is not huge, {I reckon about £100 worth of stamps and Love to Shop vouchers}it was very useful to me at Xmas as a pensioner.
I feel that Kantar have been rather economical with the truth in their guidelines for Postal Panel surveys and should I have known the true penalty for being honest, perhaps I would have been economical with the truth also

So what do you expect?
The whole point is RM isnt aware. How are you going to turn the clock back?

NBLondon

NBLondon wrote: »

Never had a white bag - you must be special ;-)

This week's bag was dark blue - that's a first.

custardy wrote: »

So what do you expect?
The whole point is RM isnt aware. How are you going to turn the clock back?

It's been debated before - the point being that the recceiving panellist didn't do anything wrong to be kicked off - maybe the sending panellist did. Which then encourages us NOT to report the issue of an item arriving open/damaged... in fact the option of "Open" has now disappeared from the list.

What exactly could RM do? OK report it to Kantar TNS but what difference does it make? Will RM put the postcode on a whitelist for faster delivery? Doubt it...

custardy

NBLondon wrote: »

This week's bag was dark blue - that's a first.
It's been debated before - the point being that the recceiving panellist didn't do anything wrong to be kicked off - maybe the sending panellist did. Which then encourages us NOT to report the issue of an item arriving open/damaged... in fact the option of "Open" has now disappeared from the list.

What exactly could RM do? OK report it to Kantar TNS but what difference does it make? Will RM put the postcode on a whitelist for faster delivery? Doubt it...

Well that's exactly what did happen in Glasgow. Preferential treatment for panellists mail
Struggling to cover a duty? Deliver the panellists mail and don't declare the rest of the failure.......
Keep in mind this is now a company's with shareholders and still under regulation. They need to be seen as stringent in monitoring performance

NBLondon

custardy wrote: »

Well that's exactly what did happen in Glasgow. Preferential treatment for panellists mail

I'm surprised at that - but I guess if that area/individual was struggling and hitting performance penalties then it would be worth them gaming the monitoring system. So how do I get on that list without TNS knowing ?

Anneblair43

If my experience is anything to go by, Royal Mail don't seem to pay that much attention to what Kantar tells them.
The Post Office that I use moved to its current location about 8 years ago but the old address is still being used. I informed Kantar of this 3 years ago and also in each subsequent year but the old address is still being used.
Also at this Post Office the last posting times { displayed inside the Post Office} are not the same as what Kantar has, again I reported this in the same way {as the Post Office address} but as of last week the discrepancy is still there.
The other thing is that the postmen notice the increase in deliveries of mail to addresses and on a couple of occasions have remarked on my receiving much more mail than usual so I suspect they likely have an idea that I may be a participate in the surveys.
This seems to have made no difference to my deliveries and I frequently get mail meant for other people and ,quite often, not all of the unaddressed mail that I am supposed to receive.

custardy

NBLondon wrote: »

I'm surprised at that - but I guess if that area/individual was struggling and hitting performance penalties then it would be worth them gaming the monitoring system. So how do I get on that list without TNS knowing ?

Its was bigger than that. It was managers coaching managers how to spot panellists.

themadvix

NBLondon wrote: »

If you've been sending after the Last Posting Time - then it will be collected the next available day and the SMART will show this when it's recognised at the depot a day later than expected. If you've logged the actual time you posted - this would match up. A couple of times, I've had e-mails asking me to confirm the time of posting because the SMART wasn't logged until the next day. I guess this would possibly detect cases where the box wasn't emptied properly, or the contents weren't processed promptly.

I doubt that TNS will act - unless they thought you were repeatedly entering wrong times.

I try to keep to the before/after midday; but as Saetana says - if the collection times don't allow it and there isn't a sensible alternative box then all you can do is post early and log the actual time you posted.

I messaged Kantar about this and was told to follow the timings on my paper sheet and the front page of the schedule (i.e. not the data entry page, which they haven't got working properly yet??). HTH.

On another note, I did correctly delivered ending on 17 Aug and haven't received my vouchers yet - is that normal? They're pretty quick to send out the thank you ones for APLs, so I'd expected to have received it for the CD survey by now.

quoia

custardy wrote: »

Well that's exactly what did happen in Glasgow. Preferential treatment for panellists mail
Struggling to cover a duty? Deliver the panellists mail and don't declare the rest of the failure.......
Keep in mind this is now a company's with shareholders and still under regulation. They need to be seen as stringent in monitoring performance

NBLondon wrote: »

I'm surprised at that - but I guess if that area/individual was struggling and hitting performance penalties then it would be worth them gaming the monitoring system. So how do I get on that list without TNS knowing ?

custardy wrote: »

Its was bigger than that. It was managers coaching managers how to spot panellists.

From about 18 months ago - when a similar issue was raised

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/72319663#Comment_72319663

Not just Glasgow - also Belfast, Carlisle, Manchester and Preston

..... & 2 areas of London years earlier

and a direct link to the article in the Daily Telegraph

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/7429037/How-a-whistleblower-blew-the-lid-on-Royal-Mails-managers-fiddling-the-companys-performance.html

and a related one

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/royal-mail/7975183/Royal-Mail-escapes-fine-after-trying-to-manipulate-figures.html

Saetana

Finally got a reply back from TNS about whether to post before last collection or not:


"If you have been asked to post an item after midday but before last collection please post the item in a post box that has a later last collection time than 9am if possible otherwise post the item at the most convenient time for yourself. As long as the data entry is completed correctly there should not be any major issues.
I hope this resolves your query."

This wasn't actually what I asked - I asked if items supposed to be posted after midday should also be posted before last collection. Typical TNS not reading the message properly!



So basically do whatever is covenient with regards to posting so long as you log the time and date of posting correctly on the website and, of course, post on the correct day of the week

Saetana

themadvix wrote: »

I messaged Kantar about this and was told to follow the timings on my paper sheet and the front page of the schedule (i.e. not the data entry page, which they haven't got working properly yet??). HTH.

On another note, I did correctly delivered ending on 17 Aug and haven't received my vouchers yet - is that normal? They're pretty quick to send out the thank you ones for APLs, so I'd expected to have received it for the CD survey by now.

I just posted the reply I received about when to post items - I really wish they wouldn't tell 3 different people 3 different things


As for the Correctly Delivered - since the new website launched they have been taking ages to send out vouchers for both the correctly delivered and unaddressed mail surveys. They do allow one more week for data entry for the correctly delivered survey after the survey period ends - they used to send the vouchers out a few days after that but it seems this no longer happens. If I think they have taken too long then I fire off a message to them via the website - they will either reply and say they haven't been sent out yet or, if you're lucky, they may give you an approximate time.