Canada Post pledges to improve weather delay notification process

Canada Post has promised to improve the way it warns customers of possible weather disruption to its services. The Crown Corporation had to apologize to customers last week for failing to notify them of the delivery delays over the previous three weeks.

Some Canadians went weeks without mail following an ice storm in December, with complaints featuring prominently in the nation’s media.

Canada Post said on Friday it faced “unprecedented weather events” across the country in the past fews weeks, but said this had highlighted the need to improve its notification process for extreme weather.

The Corporation said it would notify local news media of delays or delivery service suspensions through a new tiered alert system.

This will see a Red Alert issued if no delivery will be attempted that day because of the severity of the weather, or a Yellow Alert if delivery will be attempted, but some addresses will not receive mail that day because of weather.

Canada Post said updates would be provided to media as the situation evolves, and will be posted on canadapost.ca and distributed by social media site Twitter for “greater immediacy”.

The Corporation pledged: “Canada Post is committed to delivering the highest level of service to all Canadians and ensuring they are better informed when the weather hampers our ability to provide that service.

“This process is now in place and has already been used for weather-related delays experienced in parts of Newfoundland-and-Labrador this week.”

Canada Post delivers to more than 15.3m addresses across Canada, handling almost 10bn items a year.

The state-owned corporation is currently in the process of changing its mail delivery services so that those households receiving delivery to the doorstep will convert to some form of community mailbox in order to cut delivery costs in the light of declining mail volumes.