Friday 23 March 2007

Royal Mail - alpha

I have had an email from a trader I bought an item from on eBay have the package returned to sender as it was not 'called for'. I have never received a card to collect an item. When a similar problem occurred recently due to the ineptitude of the "Royal" Mail, the woman on the desk of the sorting office refused to go and look as I did not have a card. Can you please tell me WHY in your so-called Customer Service policies, no-one has the brains to ask WHY mail has to be returned to the sender? Or is this some conspiracy to get people to pay twice?

As I am refusing to pay for YOUR problem, please send a small supply of claims forms to the above address, so that I can have some to hand, as I am awaiting a delivery from a company in England, and you have already 'lost' his previous order.

Considering the problem is only intermittent, perhaps you would look into your staffing, as there are a number of streets, places and closes with similar names - but one would think that that would be taken into consideration before the management returned uncollected packages willy-nilly without considering the complete picture (tired postman, poor training, rushed jobs, unfamiliar route, lack of community spirit, etc).

I look forward to some sort of improvement in service from the "Royal" Mail, and you can keep track with further developments online at http://aktoman.blogspot.com/ - as the item purchased was to accompany me on my charity trek across Scotland on the Southern Upland Way, but your people have just ruined that.

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Sent via the Royal Mail website >> "Customer Service/ How can we help?/ I've got another problem which isn't shown here ".

I do love the terminology. "Service", "How can we help?" about a problem "you" have. Well, my problem is that someone at the post office failed to do their job, and I am out of pocket, so exactly how are you going to help me? Perhaps you can go back to making deliveries when people are home from work? Or by not introducing 1-week turnarounds when you fail to deliver the packages in the first place.

I couldn't help but notice how many packets were waiting to be delivered when I called in to the sorting office a few Saturdays ago. Something in the Royal Mail system ain't working, and needs to be fixed. May I suggest that if the core business is delivering the mail, you start with that.

So, at the moment, I've an unhappy trader who has received their packet back (Hi, Jim), a customer who has paid for delivery with nothing to show for it, and a post office 'service' who appear on TV and talk about percentages of correct deliveries, etc.

I have 3 packets await redelivery tomorrow, all requested through the Royal Mail website. Hopefully it all goes well, as I hate dealing with this Corporation

2 comments:

Londonbackpacker said...

I`ve have a similar problem.

I ordered something for my wife's birtday and asked the company if they could try t have it delivered on Saturday (as someone would be in), just been to the door and there is a card 'Sorry you were out' well I`m not out.

I have been sitting here since 6.45 am this morning, cheeky bugger didn't knock. :(

I can't get through to the office, and they close at 1.00pm everyday.

So now I have the hassle that I trying to avoid all because they can't bother knocking.

AktoMan said...

I recall a similar experience in "Still Game", but the faux-pensioner was waiting behind the door for the card to come through the door. With ketchup in hand, he catches the postie who couldn't be bothered carrying the parcel on his rounds. But real life isn't like that.

In real life, a card can say you have to wait 24-48hrs from time of first delivery. So if they deliver when you're at work, you'll probably be at work the same time 24-48hrs later.

Why does it take 24-48hrs for a parcel to get back to the sorting office that is a 15 minute drive away?

Is there anywhere in the policies where the customer and the core business is considered? Management will blame workers, workers blame the management, and the decent hard-working folks get annoyed that they never get a mention. Hence my mention of "the happy, cheery postman" this morning.

As to this morning, well, none of this morning's deliveries were to be signed for, so I'm still waiting for the recorded delivery item to come, and if it doesn't, I have to drive round to the sorting office by 12.30 (across Saturday traffic). As they tried delivering it on the 20th, if I don't collect it by Tuesday, it will be returned to sender. So it is either today, or a pre-work drive to collect it.

Then I go up town to buy the multitool that I saw last week that the lass didn't know anything about. Life seems to be difficult sometimes, but at least they aren't the important things in life, just wastes of time sorting things out, sitting in on my day off waiting for someone to do a job of work when I could be doing what I want to do, or what I need to do. But, hey, that's the modern world for you. Life goes on, and I just pass my problems on to the people who created the problem in the first place. I'm not carrying their monkey on my back.