UK Royal Mails services improves after spring dip
Royal Mail said today that more than nine in ten First Class letters are now arriving the day after posting following a temporary dip in performance between April and June.
Preliminary figures for August show First Class, next-day delivery performance is currently hitting around 92% – a major improvement of five percentage points above May, the period when there was the greatest level of operational change.
“There is now real evidence the service is getting better,” said Royal Mail’s Chief Executive, Adam Crozier.
“Clearly there were some problems in the spring but the service has improved, month-on-month, since May. We are now approaching our target level for First Class mail.”
An analysis published today confirms Royal Mail’s earlier reports that service dipped in the spring while the company bedded in a massive modernisation programme in the letters business.
“The changes were not optional but are essential to improve efficiency, and ensure Royal Mail can compete profitably with a high quality service against growing competition in the mail market,” said Mr Crozier.
During the period between April and June 2004, 88.3% of First Class letters were delivered the next working day. The low point came in May when First Class fell to 87.2% but there has since been a significant improvement. In July, independent research shows 90.9% of First Class mail arrived the following day and preliminary figures for August are showing a performance of around 92% – the highest level since the end of last summer.
Royal Mail also confirmed today that more than £50 million initially is being returned to customers who suffered service disruption last financial year, when the unofficial strike action last autumn was the biggest single factor leading to Royal Mail failing its service targets.
More than £35 million is being credited to business customers under Royal Mail’s new bulk mail compensation scheme. This is on top of £16.5 million already paid to individual customers and small businesses.
Mr Crozier, who took personal day-to-day control of the letters business in early May, said: “We still have some way to go but we are making progress.
“We have implemented around 95% of the operational changes in our modernisation programme for the letters business, involving changing the jobs of 140,000 postmen and women and restructuring the entire national transport operation. We have also improved the security of the mail.”
Postcomm and Postwatch have both supported Royal Mail’s modernisation plans.
Mr Crozier stressed: “Delivering consistent, high quality service remains Royal Mail’s number one priority.”
He added: “Royal Mail is now operating profitably after launching its renewal plan two and a half years ago when the company was losing more than £1 million every working day. Only a business that is successful financially can continue delivering the one-price-goes-anywhere universal service to the UK’s 27 million addresses in a market that will be open to full competition from rivals in 2½ years, perhaps less.”
Mr Crozier said the performance in the spring was not good enough and he repeated the apology to customers that he had delivered at that time.
“Everyone in Royal Mail is focused on making further improvements to Royal Mail’s service to customers,” he said.
“Royal Mail’s postmen and women have shown a fantastic commitment to improving service in recent months. The improvements we are making are down to their dedication. I’m also pleased at the constructive support we’ve had from the Communication Workers Union as the operational changes have been introduced.”
FAIR COMPENSATION FOR CUSTOMERS
Mr Crozier added: “We are absolutely committed to delivering high quality customer service and we believe that when we fail to hit agreed standards, customers should get fair compensation.
“Our scheme is unique in the industry. It was announced in October 2003 and was backdated for the full 12 months of the last financial year. Unlike rival companies, there is no exclusion for strike action, even when it’s unofficial, which was the major factor behind last year’s disruption.
“We have applied the scheme, which was agreed by Postcomm, in a fair way. We believe this is the fairest scheme in Europe and there is an open and transparent appeals process to ensure it is applied correctly.”
Royal Mail’s bulk compensation scheme makes credits to customers’ accounts if they have paid 80% of their bills on time and if annual Quality of Service targets for bulk business products are failed by more than one per cent. The scheme refunds 0.1% of a customer’s bill for every 0.1% drop in performance below the set target for that service, to a maximum of 5%.
Full details about the compensation scheme and how the calculations have been made can be obtained from the Royal Mail web site. Royal Mail is encouraging customers to visit the site, where they can also find details on how to make inquiries or appeals about the level of compensation.
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