Disenchanted companies desert Royal Mail (UK)

Business customers are deserting Royal Mail and most firms do not find the postal group an efficient organisation to work with, a study by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) for The Times has revealed.
The BCC sought the views of nearly 1,000 businesses throughout the country about their use of Royal Mail and their experience of the organisation.
Sixty-eight per cent said that they did not find the postal group to be a “professional, efficient organisation to do business with”; 55 per cent said that Royal Mail was less reliable than it was five years ago and only 8 per cent thought that it had improved.
In a striking example of how much electronic communication has hit the use of postal services, nearly 86 per cent of businesses said that they used the internet and e-mail for transactions that they would have put through Royal Mail five years ago.
The BCC survey comes as the National Federation of SubPostmasters (NFSP) gives warning today that 3,000 more post offices may be forced to shut if the Government withdraws post offices’ rights to handle benefits and pension payments through the post office card account.
Royal Mail is in the middle of a programme to shut 2,500 post offices in its loss-making network.
The poor reaction to Royal Mail from BCC firms comes as the postal group suffers a new crisis of confidence.
Last week an independent review for the Government said that Royal Mail’s financial position was so bad that in the future it would not be able to fulfil its legal obligation of providing a flat-rate nationwide postal service.
Royal Mail also gave warning that it would be seeking more money from the Government and that its pension deficit could soon double, leaving it with a £1 billion annual pension bill.
Subpostmasters will press the Government today to renew the contract for the post office card account when it comes up for review next year.