Consumer Focus publish Royal Mail survey
More than half of UK postal users (55%) claim to have received a ‘Sorry You Were Out’ card even though someone was at home to receive the item, according to figures released today by Consumer Focus. The article continues:
Nearly a quarter (23%) reported this happening three times or more in the past year.
The high numbers affected by this issue reflects the changing way we use the postal service – a decline in the number of letters delivered and an increase in the volumes of parcels such as goods ordered on the Internet.
With 37% describing the collection of mail from Royal Mail and other delivery offices as ‘inconvenient’, Consumer Focus is calling on Royal Mail and other couriers to keep up with the world around them and develop more suitable ways of delivering parcels and packets.
Possible solutions include extending the opening hours of delivery offices; leaving mail at Post Offices; evening deliveries or locker banks where customers are contacted by mobile phone or email when their mail has been delivered to a secure locker – similar to a successful system in Germany.
Robert Hammond, postal expert, Consumer Focus said: “There’s a growing body of evidence that the ‘Sorry You Were Out’ card issue is far from a series of isolated incidents as Royal Mail has claimed. This issue has to be thoroughly investigated and the problem stamped out.
“The high regard many of us have for Royal Mail will fade rapidly if they can’t find a way of delivering parcels conveniently.”
Nine in ten (92%) see the postal service as important to them – over two thirds (68%) said very important. Three-quarters felt they had received a good service from Royal Mail in the past year, despite the survey taking place during the national postal strike.
The survey also found:
Nine in ten (88%) of us send at least one item of post in a typical month, with over half (57%) sending between one and five items
Four-fifths had sent a parcel or letter in the past month with two thirds sending a parcel or letter in the past week Only one in a hundred (1%) of respondents use post as the most common way of keeping in touch with family or friends, preferring to communicate by telephone or email instead.
