Royal Mail’s quality of service drops

Royal Mail has said that First and Second Class quality of service rates have fallen. The operator said that industrial action in 2009, along with disruption caused by severe winter weather, meant most services fell short of their quality targets in 2009-10 despite the record high quality performances delivered last spring.

The latest quality of service report covering a 12-month period until March 2010 showed that Standard Parcels, European International Delivery and some business bulk mail beat their targets. However, 87.9% overall of First Class mail arrived the day after posting – below the 93% target for the year but more than ten percentage points above the 78.9% figure in the autumn during a period of several national one-day strikes by the CWU.

Second Class mail narrowly missed its 98.5% target for the year to the end of March 2010 with a 96.7% performance.

Mark Higson, Royal Mail’s managing director, said: “Everyone in Royal Mail is focused on restoring quality of service to the target-beating levels we achieved a year ago and I’m delighted to say that the modernisation agreement we’ve reached with the CWU provides the stability and framework to complete our transformation to provide consistent, high quality, efficient service for all our customers.”