Mystery shoppers find knowledge gaps at UK post offices

Queues are getting worse in UK post offices, research from Consumer Focus revealed today, with wait times up in High Street branches according to latest figures. And, following mystery shopper testing, the national consumer watchdog said today that Post Office staff could be selling overly expensive products to customers because they do not ask the right questions when recommending services like Special Delivery.

Crown post offices – the flagship branches owned and operated by Post Office Ltd itself – have seen queue times falling “significantly”, the research found.

But in other post offices, the number of customers waiting more than five minutes has edged up from 26% in 2009 to 31% in the latest survey.

WH Smith, a major retail chain that provides post office services, has seen the number of its customers waiting more than five minutes for service increase from 31% in 2009 up to 40%.

The Consumer Focus research was carried out by RS Consulting in late 2011, with mystery shoppers visiting 448 post office branches, including 166 Crown Post Offices, 224 franchised outlets and 58 run by national retailer WH Smith.

The study found some good news on aspects like accessibility – more post offices are now accessible for customers with disabilities.

Crown Post offices have had queue times reduced through the use of more automated Post and Go machines, with wait times down from just over six minutes in 2009 to under four minutes.

But, along with an increase in the number of High Street branches with long queues, the Consumer Focus research found that post office staff in franchised branches were not asking the necessary questions to sell consumers the right product.

Questions

Mystery shoppers found that 46% of counter staff did not ask all questions needed to determine the appropriate product for a customer, and in nearly a quarter of cases, no questions were asked at all.

An overwhelming 93% of staff who asked no questions to mystery shoppers ended up recommending Special Delivery without knowing whether the product was suitable, when there were less costly alternatives available such as Second Class Recorded Signed For, or First Class Recorded.

Post Office Ltd, which oversees a network of 11,799 post offices across the UK, is currently in the middle of a GBP 1.34bn modernisation programme that will see 6,000 outlets updated, including 2,000 rural outlets to be turned into streamlined “Post Office Locals”, and 4,000 to become full “Post Office Mains”.

Consumer Focus, the national consumer watchdog, urged Post Office Ltd today to do more to share best practice among post office outlets achieving shorter queue times, and take a tougher approach to outlets with wait times of 10 minutes or longer.

It said branch and staff performance had to be measured against the accuracy of products and pricing advice being given, not just sales targets.

And, the watchdog said staff had to ask the necessary questions to determine customers’ needs.

Andy Burrows, the Consumer Focus head of post offices, said there had been some “welcome improvements” in the network thanks to the current investment and modernisation efforts, including shorter wait times at Crown Post Offices and better access for customers with disabilities.

But he pointed to concerns over quality and accuracy of counter staff knowledge.

“It is important that customers can be confident they receive the very best advice and service,” he said. “For their part, consumers need to be clear about what services they need when they visit their post office.”

“Limited sample”

Responding to the study, Post Office Ltd said today that the Consumer Focus research was carried out a year ago, and “doesn’t fully reflect the positive developments in the Post Office today”.

The company also suggested the research on counter service quality was based on a “limited sample”.

“Our key priority is to deliver excellent customer service and where issues are identified, we are always willing to address them,” spokesman Ronan Kelleher told Post&Parcel.

“Our counter staff are trained to have a dialogue with customers to find out what product best suits their needs. This Report looks at a limited sample from a year ago and does not appear to record if our staff offered a choice of products and explained their features which are all ways that would help a customer to make an informed choice.”

The Post Office Ltd spokesman added that reducing queuing was “important” to the company, and although he said the Consumer Focus study was based on “one snapshot from last November”, he said the improvements found in Crown Post Offices was “consistent with our own monitoring”.