Royal Mail pay out over customer complaints

Royal Mail paid a total of £160,000 compensation to thousands of customers in Hounslow and Richmond in the UK who complained about problems with their deliveries last year, reports This Is Local London.

Royal Mail paid a total of £160,000 compensation to thousands of customers in Hounslow and Richmond in the UK who complained about problems with their deliveries last year, reports This Is Local London.

The article continues:

More than 10,000 residents – nearly 30 a day – living in the TW postal area reported failures including 2,604 lost parcels, and 228 that were damaged.

The 2008/09 figures also show 2,019 complaints for delayed deliveries and 1,460 over redirected packages.

Brentford Councillor Andrew Dakers, leader of Hounslow’s Liberal Democrats, said: “Local residents are clearly suffering from an insufficiently reliable service from Royal Mail.

“Given that Royal Mail faces ever mounting pressure from internet technology and competitors it is essential the service improves. Their customers deserve better.”

Susan Kramer, MP for Richmond Park, planned to meet with Royal Mail to discuss a string of complaints from her constituents.

She said: “I have had repeated meetings with Royal Mail on this issue following complaints from residents. Each time the service and staffing has improved for a short period, only to deteriorate again.

“The uncertainty over the future of Royal Mail, and the difficult relationship with staff is clearly not helping matters.

“But in the long term, if Royal Mail is to keep the confidence of residents in this area, the service will have to be much more reliable.”

Postal workers continued with strike action in a dispute over jobs and modernisation, causing disruption to deliveries in several areas including London.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) also planned to hold a ballot for a national strike in September.

A spokeswoman for the CWU said: “Good industrial relations are key to delivering effective services.

“We need to see the introduction of automation for sorting, investment in new equipment and innovation in new products and services, but without negotiations all postal workers are seeing is endless cuts.

“Royal Mail needs to engage the workforce through union negotiations at this important time for the business.”

Across the country, Royal Mail paid more than £13m compensation last year following 1.3m complaints. Residents in the W postal area registered 13,732 complaints and where paid a total of £189,822, while the SW postal area had 21,848 complaints with £287,483 paid out.

Figures for 2007/08 show there were 9,727 complaints, but only £86,466 was paid out – despite nearly 1,000 more people receiving compensation than in 2008/09.

Royal Mail said the two years were not comparable as regulator Postcomm had altered the categories for complaints statistics.

A spokeswoman for Royal Mail said: “We handle around 75 million items every day, and only a tiny fraction of customers need to raise any concern or complaint with us – around one in 14,500 – and overall complaints have fallen by around 8 per cent since last year.

“We deliver more than 98 per cent of letters and packets on or ahead of target, but continue to take every complaint extremely seriously and are doing everything we can to modernise our operation and improve our service.”

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