Hillsborough
Sheffield
S6 2LL
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Your Order Could Be Delayed By 24 Hours
(or Why I love the Royal Mail, not............)
Ever since the steam age you could post a letter in Sheffield up to 9.30PM and it would go
the same day, now it`s 7.30PM and you have to travel all the way out to the main sorting office to even take advantage of that. Furthermore your post would generally be delivered before you went to work, do you remember that because it already seems like some long lost dream from prehistory.
Unfortunately there has been a consistent trend for the post to be collected earlier and earlier and delivered later and later, but don`t forget that`s progress, apparently......
In October 2006 the Royal Mail excelled themselves in their ability to cut services (and increase the price at the same time, of course....) by advancing the collection times of both the post boxes we use from 7.00PM to 5.30PM, that`s one and a half hours !
It does not take a genius to work out that 5.30PM is our closing time. Unless we have a spare member of staff (who, preferably, can sprint down to the postbox at 5.25) the bleedin` post may very well not go until the following day.
On questioning the RM about it they pronounced that the collection service (of the last 100 years) was “over specified”, so they were going to “respecify it”. That`s a marvellous piece
of modern obfuscation is it not ? I`ll bet it comes from some smarmy management trainee whose just come back from a training course. He probably thought of it whilst hammering his company Mondeo up the motorway, cutting everyone up and chatting on his mobile phone whilst as he did so, tosser........
I tried to tell my wife I was “over specified” but she wouldn`t have it, so that begs the question why should we accept it from the RM and their “management genius” bosses
at the time, Allan Leighton and Adam Crozier. They earned over a million pounds a year whilst at the RM for “financially turning round” a monopoly service by increasing the price and cutting the service, they should work in the real world of competition were you can`t upset your customers and survive. Actually my sarcasm is misplaced because anyone
that can get paid that much, for doing that job, must be a genius, one way or the other.
Complain to Post Comm via www.psc.gov.uk (if the Government haven`t scrapped it.....)
or phone them up, Post Comm = 0207 593 2100.
Alternatively try phoning the Royal Mail but I wouldn`t use their “general enquiries” line because that`s probably the poorest phone answering service I`ve ever had the misfortune
to use, and I`ve come across some absolute shockers. It`s even worse than PayPal`s,
and that`s saying something because their customer service is infamous..... Poor phone service is a modern trend, basically companies don`t want to speak to you at all, and that, ironically, includes British Telecom. “It`s good to talk”, well possibly, but not for them, or rather it is, but only to their bleedin` computer, not, God forbid, an actual person......
Having said that the Royal Mail are the one of the leaders in the competition for worst phone service, which is ironic `cos it`s the only competition they know anything about.
Use the Royal Mail head office telephone number 0207 250 2888. Take note of this number because if you ever have to phone the RM to complain, this could be the most useful piece of information on this entire website......
PS I`m not blaming the Posties ! It`s the (overpaid) managers.....
Stop Press ! It was discovered that the RM actually had an easy way out off the above problem because there is a “late collection box” (if you can call 6.00PM late....) down an obscure back road in Hillsborough. The slot is too small to put anything bigger than a
small letter through but all those wonderful people at the RM had to do was swap the box
for a larger one.
Their response ?
“We can`t be arsed”, or words to that effect........
God, I love them so much.
Stop Press ! ! There are actually a few (7.15PM collection) mail boxes that we have sometimes been able to get to without a trip in the wrong direction through peak hours traffic. In fact I would often drop the post off on my way to swimming at that virtuoso swimming pool that is Ponds Forge. Unfortunately as of Feb 07 the Royal Mail have continued with their campaign to make life as awkward as possible for their customers by “respecifying” the collection times from the aforementioned 7.15PM forward to 6.30PM and
thus making it impractical to use those as well.......
Stop Press ! ! ! As of Sunday the 28th of October 2007 the Royal Mail will be “respecifying” its Sunday/Bank Holiday collections, i.e. there won`t be any......
If we fail get your package in the post box by 12.00AM Saturday it won`t even get collected until Monday morning `cos it`s too much trouble for them.
Ehh, unfortunately the above time of 12.00 has now been “respecified” forward to 9.00AM....
I wouldn`t worry about it though because they`ll probably stop Saturday collections altogether sooner or later anyway.
To be honest they`d prefer us to take our mail straight to the Royal Mail sorting offices so they don`t have to collect it at all. In fact it`s a certainty that the Royal Mail would actually like us to drop our letters off at the Local Delivery Office, and I mean the one at the destination end, so they don`t even have to transport them.
Now that is what they`d call efficiency, it`s obvious when you think about it...................
We await with bated breath what they`ll do next. One thing is for sure, they will do
something to make the service even worse. Watch this space, or the collection times notices on your own post boxes.........
Stop Press ! ! ! ! The strikes (October 2009) won`t actually affect most of our customers
because the majority of our orders are sent out by next day courier [that`s why it`s so
expensive......], but RM delivered items may obviously be subject to delay.
I have to say I don`t usually approve of strikes, especially when they affect the general
public, after all if most of us are unhappy in our jobs we have to go and find another one
don`t we ! But let`s remember that the management of RM are the ones responsible for the
worst customer service, certainly their phone service, I`ve ever come across. If they`re
prepared to inflict that on their customers they know bugger all about customer service,
and indeed management at all......
As an experiment try comparing the answering on the RM`s "customer service line" (which
is on 08457 740 740) with TNT`s on 0800 100 600. I think you`ll agree the RM management
want putting up against a wall and shooting, and preferably the same wall that my phones
end up getting thrown against every time I have to ring them......
Actually, it`s time to stop taking the p**s, and give the other side, tiresomely tedious though that is. Since Jan 2010 the Royal Mail actually pick up the post from us every day (though we have to pay £600 a year for that.....) so ridiculously early post box collection times don`t actually affect us any more. But anyway, Royal Mail`s collections may be getting earlier, their deliveries might be getting later, and their customer service phone line may be appalling, but, to be honest, generally, they don`t do too bad in actually delivering the mail.
We use RM for small orders and I have to say the parcel usually gets there the next day (First Class). It`s very rare for an item to be (permanently) lost and pretty rare for them to get damaged either. What`s more it`s the same price for a letter/parcel to go anywhere with a UK post code. Carriers charge a lot extra for NW Scotland or off shore, with RM it`s the same from North Sheffield to South Sheffield as it is from Sheffield to the Shetland Islands. That`s the universal service obligation for you !
Furthermore, at least for small/light items, let`s face it, they`re pretty cheap, and Saturday delivery is no extra charge either, not yet anyway........
What`s more nearly all the Posties who pick up our orders are helpful and friendly, I`ve no problem with them at all, except when they go on strike, but that`s not that often !
Basically, whilst things are going well, which is most of the time, RM give a good service.
It`s when things go wrong that they fall down big time. If ever a customer phones to say a delivery hasn`t got there, as we look for the invoice we`re always fervently hoping to find it`s gone TNT !
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