Postal Quality of Service in Europe Remains Very High

Quality of letter service between postal operators in Europe continues at a very high level. It is far above both the European Union’s speed objective of 85 percent of intra-EU mail delivery within three days, and its reliability objective of 97 percent within five days.

In 2007, 94.1pct of international priority/1st class letter mail was delivered within three days after posting (J+3) and 98.7pct within five days (J+5). Average delivery time was 2.2 days. These results cover 29 European countries, i.e. the EU Member States (except Bulgaria which will be included in 2008), together with Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.

Commenting on the results, Dr Herbert-Michael Zapf, President and Chief Executive Officer, IPC, said: “One of the key results is that the posts delivered almost twice as many letters in two days as they did in 1994, when Europe-wide measurement began. In 2007, the reliability objective of 97pct in five days was already exceeded in only four days when a level of 97.9pct was reached. This is the highest level of performance so far recorded by the IPC UNEX measurement system.”

Dr Zapf added: “The results demonstrate the continuing commitment of postal operators to excellent service to customers.”

Quality of service performance is measured by IPC’s UNEX end-to-end monitoring system which is conducted independently by an external research firm. Results are based on about 400,000 test letters per year, as they move anonymously through the international mail processing system, from posting to delivery.