Royal Mail profits from inefficient services

[Worldlife]

In the good old days one was reasonably certain that a first class letter would reach its destination safely.

Nowdays I tend to send vital documents by recorded delivery.

I'm now trying to chase up a recorded delivery letter posted on 12th November that is not shown as being delivered or delivery attempted and has not been returned to me as uncollected (approximately 7 days after failed delivery attempt)

Good thing it wasn't my parking penalty to National Car Parks or the first thing I would have known about the undelivered letter would have been a visit from the Debt Recovery agents!!!!

Looks like Royal Mail want to make more profit by selling special delivery and registered post instead of providing basic services we can rely on.

Anyone else got grievances about lost recorded delivery letters?

[seaviewuk]

In the good old days one was reasonably certain that a first class letter would reach its destination safely.

Nowdays I tend to send vital documents by recorded delivery.

I'm now trying to chase up a recorded delivery letter posted on 12th November that is not shown as being delivered or delivery attempted and has not been returned to me as uncollected (approximately 7 days after failed delivery attempt)

Good thing it wasn't my parking penalty to National Car Parks or the first thing I would have known about the undelivered letter would have been a visit from the Debt Recovery agents!!!!

Looks like Royal Mail want to make more profit by selling special delivery and registered post instead of providing basic services we can rely on.

Anyone else got grievances about lost recorded delivery letters?

Originally Posted by Worldlife

Another Victor Meldrew moment?

Although Royal Mail is far from perfect, I find the service reliable and cost effective.

It's great that the enhanced services are available for a fair price.

Maybe your item is stuck down the back of a sorting machine

To summarize, far better The Royal Mail than privatised expensive cherry picking mail delivery services.

SVUK what you fail to realise is that our Victor has complained so much that hes on a Blacklist and he receives "special treatment" at all major establishments.

Never in the field of human complaining has one man complained so much about so little

tis a joke W/L

[Memfis]

I would also like to say I think the royal mail do a great job, just a minority can let them down.

Not my local round and cant remember the details, a local postie was in the paper a few weeks back having been caught dumping his postal round in a river/lake/canal for a fair old while. (if memory serves me right it was over six months).

I complained about charges for missing a dental appointment, they claim they'd sent a reminder but noted that I wasn't the first to complain. Really was my fault anyway as I had booked it over six months before and had forgotton so I paid anyway.

They do a bloody good job IMO.

Never had a letter go astray - never a parcel and I receive a load from clients.

I heard today that people are jumping up and down about a 6p rise in a first class stamp..........SIX PENCE - I mean THAT MUCH

Incredible. I think that certain people in this country just HAVE to have SOMETHING to bloody moan about!

[druid]

I have to agree with the support for Royal mail, one day when they have been disbanded and private companies take over they are not going to be interested in taking a letter to Scotland or even down the road for thirty odd pence, Royal mail is an institution we love to moan about but one day we may look back and say "remember when we could post a letter for 30 pence?"

IMHO they should increase the cost of first class letters to between 40 and 50 pence and keep second class at the present rate, the extra profit would allow them to improve the service.

Sometimes they muck things up but 99.99% of the time they are good, to be able to post a letter in our village post office at 5pm and have it delivered 200 miles away the following day for 30 odd pence is a steal IMHO and we should be grateful that we have such a fantastic service.

[janitor1999]

Don't forget thats six pence over the next four years. price of first class stamp to be thirty six pence by 2010.

Yeah over the next four years thats right janitor

they should increase the cost of first class letters to between 40 and 50 pence and keep second class at the present rate, the extra profit would allow them to improve the service.

Couldnt agree more.

[centaur]

I have to agree with the support for Royal mail, one day when they have been disbanded and private companies take over they are not going to be interested in taking a letter to Scotland or even down the road for thirty odd pence, Royal mail is an institution we love to moan about but one day we may look back and say "remember when we could post a letter for 30 pence?"

IMHO they should increase the cost of first class letters to between 40 and 50 pence and keep second class at the present rate, the extra profit would allow them to improve the service.

Sometimes they muck things up but 99.99% of the time they are good, to be able to post a letter in our village post office at 5pm and have it delivered 200 miles away the following day for 30 odd pence is a steal IMHO and we should be grateful that we have such a fantastic service.

Originally Posted by druid

You've got a fair point about the cost of 'first class' postage, but I can assure you as an ex-employee, that the extra funds generated wouldn't make them any more 'efficient'. Previous history in ANY nationalised industry illustrates exactly the opposite effect, and one that 'Parkinson's law' afficionados recognise instantly. The 'deadwood' merely multiplies at the rate of 'increased investment', or 'profits' to mop up the additional income.
I worked in Management accounts for @ 8 years and was utterly appalled by the top heavy management, overloaded admin and utterly anarchistic 'decision making' process.
Imo, the very best thing which could happen to Royal Mail would be full privatisation with ESSENTIAL employees taking shares in the privatised company...something which works totally in any privatised industry in the UK.

When I left RM (I begged for redundancy because of the utter shambles it had become ) there were @ 200,000 employees of which I seem to remember the breakdown was 120,000 postal or sortation, 40,000 administrators and 40,000 'managers'....now I don't know whether anyone here has ever worked in a REAL business, but if so, you can see immediately just how completely 'unbalanced' the 'workforce' ratios are. However, as I said already, these are probably wholly typical of almost any nationalised industry in the UK.....and show just how very bad anything run by the government is !!

This of course hides an even bigger problem, that of pensions....and one would have to be totally hidden under sand not to realise how dangerous, and downright niggardly this government has treated Private pension funds, whilst apparently endorsing almost unlimited benefits to public employees to retire 'early' ...not to mention their own superior pensions.

[Worldlife]

Not just me moaning this time!!

See Thieving, laziness and utter chaos in the post

If I recall correctly CH4 Dispatches programme were in trouble for reconstructing the alleged stealing of credit cards from customer post.

[centaur]

Not just me moaning this time!!

See Thieving, laziness and utter chaos in the post

If I recall correctly CH4 Dispatches programme were in trouble for reconstructing the alleged stealing of credit cards from customer post.

Originally Posted by Worldlife

I have to say that RM's 'working practices' were barely into the 20th century by the time I left (2001) let alone the 21st. They were still attempting to bring the pay structure into something sensible by doing away with some of the 30 or so separate payments which could form part of one person's wages.
These had largely come about because basic pay had fallen so far behind the rest of the country's businesses, that these additional payments were created, unfortunately however, they weren't included into the basic pay unlike other industries. RM are now paying the price of failing to adopt modern pay and work practices which almost any other organisation had encompassed in the 1970's and 1980's. Ironically enough, they didn't need to go through the tortuous process of playing around with the actual mechanics of the postal operation. A simple cull of the accumulated deadwood in management and admin would have put them back into profitability years ago !

[janitor1999]

Maybe things have changed in the 4 years since you left and don't really believe those lsses were actually real one year they make £500 million profit the next they are losing £1 million a day 3 year reinvention programme and back into multi milliom pound profits again. Stinks

[druid]

Surely it is of no real consequence to the customer how outdated Royal mail are in the way they do things? the simple fact is that one can post a letter in Penzance at 5pm and 99% of the time it will be posted through the letterbox of the recipients house the next morning all for around 30pence!

IMHO I reckon that is value of the century and if it cost three times as much it would still be excellent value!

If we had to survive with out Royal Mail for more than a week we would be willing to pay a pound a letter to have them back!

Well said Druid

As always with people in this country they run everything down.

National Health Service - THE best FREE health service in the world BAR NONE

The British Police - THE BEST IN THE WORLD AND UNARMED.

The British Postal Service - One of the BEST and surely has to be one of the
best service wise £ for £ or even p for p

I could go on.

[druid]

Well said Druid

As always with people in this country they run everything down.

National Health Service - THE best FREE health service in the world BAR NONE

The British Police - THE BEST IN THE WORLD AND UNARMED.

The British Postal Service - One of the BEST and surely has to be one of the
best service wise £ for £ or even p for p

I could go on.

Originally Posted by talktalktalk

You can go on mate I agree with you! People moan about the UK and how cráp it is here but they want to try living in a lot of other countries, they would be begging to come back after a week!

[janitor1999]

yep take a letter and take 30p see how near its destination you can get with it

[Worldlife]

Like many organisations today the top heavy management and frequent changes by the management to justify their existence is to the prejudice of the ground force core of workers.

In the past like many other jobs postal workers had pride in the service they were offering. With casual workers and part time workers you just don't get the dedicated staff who see their occupation as a long term career.

We may have a better postal service than other Countries but the question to ask is whether it a better service in comparison with that the workers of this Country could provide if properly managed and well paid and also feeling their input is appreciated.

The concept of a FREE national health service is an absolute fallacy. We pay for the service through our taxes.

We also have to make up, from private insurance schemes, for the fact that there are still excessively long waiting times to get through all the hurdles from seeing a GP to getting essential medical treatments done.

If you add the taxes plus private contributions one would probably get a better quality treatment for the price from other Countries (e.g. France)

People complaining have caused this Government to devote more money to trying to improve the NHS - that cannot be a bad thing.

We are supposed to lead the world in democracy but other Countries have proportional representation - much fairer and democratic than our unbalance first past the post system.

We pride ourselves on our legal system but only the rich (and the poor on legal aid) can afford justice. Those on a modest income risk bankruptcy to achieve justice.