Royal Mail reports drop in service performance

Royal Mail’s First Class quality of service performance fell below target in the autumn of 2009-2010, a period marked by repeated national industrial action. The third quarter report on quality of service showed that nearly eight in 10 First Class stamped letters (78.8%) arrived the next working day after posting, below the 93% target, while 93.3% of Second Class letters arrived on time within three working days after posting, below the 98.5% target.

Business bulk mail services were also below target during the autumn quarter. However, targets for European international delivery mail were exceeded by 7.5 percentage points.

Mark Higson, managing director of Royal Mail Letters, said: “We are clearly concerned that customer service was disrupted by industrial action, but strike action ended with the interim agreement reached with the union in early November and we are now completely focused on restoring quality of service to the record ‘above target’ level we achieved in the spring of 2009, prior to the strikes.”