Royal Mail Asks To Stop Saturday Letter Deliveries

FoldingStars said:
These aren't really the same bracket as Royal Mail now, they are cheaper and offer a worse service, Royal Mail for a standard shoe box comparison is Dpd, I send around 3500 parcels a year so I unfortunately do the dance every year on prices, dpd is slightly more expensive but the service far outweighs the increase in price.
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You'll have a lot of experience then. The absolute mess a year ago was horrible dealing with the liked of DPD and Evri. I ended up giving a few refunds because things were just lost and you couldn't even speak to anyone about it.
Royal Mail's service was head and shoulders better for me, but I always say that a single person's experience counts for nowt - you need to know much more data than a single person can give. But 3500 events per year is a bloody good indicator!

I have noticed that the photos RM take at utterly useless, they prove absolutely nothing - could be taken next to the skips out the back of thier office!
 


Horrified reading all this like.

I love getting post, although I don't get much. I get 4 monthly magazines delivered that I subscribe to and read each one cover to cover. I wouldn't read them online. Hate reading from screens. I also get Private Eye delivered every fortnight. They, quite rightly, refuse to go digital and to some extent that is a USP.

I've written (i.e. typed and signed on paper) hundreds of letters in the last year including also Christmas cards, birthday cards and thank you cards. The personal touch matters to many people, including me.

Written and posted letters have a better chance of being read, and read by more than one person. Part of the success of our village's short-cutting HGV reduction scheme has been the positively toned personalised letter posted to the haulier bosses whose drivers have been short-cutting through the village. They need to drive on the pavements to pass each other because the road is so narrow. Can't beat a photo of this in the hand. Most of the bosses get back to me and almost all of those that do are extremely positive. The supportive hauliers also got a hand-written Christmas card thanking them from the parish. Result: the drivers of those companies have been instructed by their bosses to use the by-pass as they should do and not only that, I went cap in hand with my MP sat in support alongside me in the board rooms, and the hauliers have paid between them for road safety improvements within the village.

Written letters and cards make a big difference. I'd hate to see them go and be replaced by email. We need to keep a postal service, even if it is reduced down to (sigh) every other day.
 
PTR said:
You'll have a lot of experience then. The absolute mess a year ago was horrible dealing with the liked of DPD and Evri. I ended up giving a few refunds because things were just lost and you couldn't even speak to anyone about it.
Royal Mail's service was head and shoulders better for me, but I always say that a single person's experience counts for nowt - you need to know much more data than a single person can give. But 3500 events per year is a bloody good indicator!

I have noticed that the photos RM take at utterly useless, they prove absolutely nothing - could be taken next to the skips out the back of thier office!
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Evri customer services are pointless, you're stuck talking to the bot who seems programmed to put you in a loop of no hope. Dpd are fine of you're the sender, same as Royal Mail, royal mail general customer services hold can be an hour but business line is 5 mins max, they know who they need to keep happy.

The thing everyone needs to know if that it's the sender who should be doing the chasing not the buyer, hate it when a customer messages me annoyed as they've spent hours talking to Royal mail as I know it's wasted and I can get the same answer in 10 minutes.

DPD has Royal Mail beat with delivery, tracking (pretty much minute by minute) and a 2 hour delivery slot means you don't need to waste a day being home. With regards to the picture, it doesn't matter, the GPS location of delivery is all that matters, of that's not within a certain distance then you can claim as wrongly delivered. It's better than a picture as on new estates where every door looks the same it isn't much help or if it's just of a doorstep.
 
I hope i still get my footy manager post before Saturdays, so i can fill in team for that week, and maybe a cheeky bid for players and then send a postal order off with it too and get there by kick off

Some might get it, some might not :lol:
 
In a business sense, it makes no sense doing 6 letter deliveries a week, every other day would suffice because they're not even treating the 1st mail as 1st class anymore. The whole business is run by idiots though, so they still would make a mess of 3 deliveries a week.
 
I remember the days of twice daily deliveries and at least two collections per day. You could get a letter in the post which had been sent the previous day, reply immediately, get it collected that afternoon and delivered the next day. A return service in under 48 hours.

These days most of those correspondence can be done by email, app or instant messaging and get a response in seconds for virtually zero cost per transaction.
 
Darlo1973 said:
I remember the days of twice daily deliveries and at least two collections per day. You could get a letter in the post which had been sent the previous day, reply immediately, get it collected that afternoon and delivered the next day. A return service in under 48 hours.

These days most of those correspondence can be done by email, app or instant messaging and get a response in seconds for virtually zero cost per transaction.
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There was only one other place in the world done two deliveries to every house a day, and that was central Berlin. The two deliveries per day was something that was obsolete long before it was sacked off.
 
Paddy O'Dors said:
Some do. I think they only offer contracts to new starters that say you must be willing to work 5 days on any day of the week.
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I know my mate can work 6 days and earn a week off every 6th week or do a rolling 5 days where he's off Monday week 1, Tuesday week 2 etc.
 
The writing looks like it is on the wall in regards to change for us. I can't deny that the business needs a major revamp and that it will lead to a massive amount of job losses in the near future.

We can tell they have already started it because anything that the business views as important mail, including hospital appointments and a couple of other things are coming in with special deliveries and we are being told that we have to make sure that they definitely go out on the day. That just started yesterday. The lad who I work out the van with has been there almost 30 years and doesn't drive (you didn't need to back then supposedly) and he thinks the writing is absolutely on the wall for his job. I think he's just hoping for a nice big redundancy pay off in the near future.

As for myself, I'm reasonably new with me only working there for 4 1/2 years now, so I'm down near the bottom of the seniority pole, so if redundancies do happen, I wonder if they will get rid of the newer ones first or the ones who have been there the longest who will cost them more in holidays, pay and all the other benefits that come with being a longstanding member of staff. Also the fact that it is becoming a 2 tiered workforce, with newer employees coming in on lesser contracts and being told they are working 5 out of 7 instead of 6 with no idea of what day off they will have that week before the end of the week, all for less pay.

I'm just hoping they don't try and force us all on to these new contracts as one of the main reasons I took this job was so I knew well in advance when I could plan time to spend with my family and these new contracts will take that away for anyone who comes in.
 
Fred said:
The writing looks like it is on the wall in regards to change for us. I can't deny that the business needs a major revamp and that it will lead to a massive amount of job losses in the near future.

We can tell they have already started it because anything that the business views as important mail, including hospital appointments and a couple of other things are coming in with special deliveries and we are being told that we have to make sure that they definitely go out on the day. That just started yesterday. The lad who I work out the van with has been there almost 30 years and doesn't drive (you didn't need to back then supposedly) and he thinks the writing is absolutely on the wall for his job. I think he's just hoping for a nice big redundancy pay off in the near future.

As for myself, I'm reasonably new with me only working there for 4 1/2 years now, so I'm down near the bottom of the seniority pole, so if redundancies do happen, I wonder if they will get rid of the newer ones first or the ones who have been there the longest who will cost them more in holidays, pay and all the other benefits that come with being a longstanding member of staff. Also the fact that it is becoming a 2 tiered workforce, with newer employees coming in on lesser contracts and being told they are working 5 out of 7 instead of 6 with no idea of what day off they will have that week before the end of the week, all for less pay.

I'm just hoping they don't try and force us all on to these new contracts as one of the main reasons I took this job was so I knew well in advance when I could plan time to spend with my family and these new contracts will take that away for anyone who comes in.
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There'll be no such thing as a nice big redundancy, they were only offering 9 months pay for voluntary redundancy during the strike talks last year. I'm recently out after 33 years and I can't see the job lasting in its current guise. It's only gonna get worse from the workers perspective I'm afraid.
 
Darlo1973 said:
Can't even remember the last time I posted a letter. Didn't even send any Christmas cards by post and I only received a handful.
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I'm going to send birthday and Christmas cards, plus letters, using the motorbike riding telegram service. Keep them in a job and hopefully create more jobs doing same if more people use them.
 
They'll probably do what they've been trying to do for a good few years and that is split the company in two. The loss making letter business and the profitable parcels business.

Possibly then look to hand the letter side back to the government/public ownership.

It'd be interesting to see how RM (Parcels) would then perform against DPd etc, once they aren't dealing with letters.
 

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