Is it Royal or Royle Mail? (Royal Mail)

Member Name: pilchierox

Product:	Royal Mail
Date:	13/12/08 (123 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: At their best they deliver an excellent service.

Disadvantages: At their worst (which is far too often) they are inept.

From the service I get from the Royal Mail I think it's the Royle Family that run it cos the people I've come into contact with would do better in a TV sitcom where they sit on their arses all day doing nothing.

Don't get me wrong, their are some excellent postal staff about. Up until a few months ago we had a brilliant postman who would always say hello and if he saw you going out would let you know he had a parcel for you but would leave it in a safe place. He would also sign for goods and leave them out of sight but where we could get them. That's all gone pear shaped in the last 3 months, though. Royal Mail tried to deliver a parcel in September and as no one was home they left a card saying wait 24 hours to collect it. We waited 48 hours and went to the Sorting Office but the parcel wasn't there, it was back in the system. After several more trips it still wasn't there. We tried complaining to the manager but was told he couldn't speak to us as he'd gone home. From the overheard conversation there was mail aplenty going missing in our area and he was aware of it. We tried contacing Customer Services to complain but got an automated message saying they were too busy to take our cal and try again tomorrow. We finally got the parcel 8 days later.

In November another parcel went missing and is still missing. The Sorting Office have the delivery card and have passed it to their manager, who will call us, but 2 weeks later nothing has happened. I have complained to Customer Services and at first was told the parcel would be delivered within 48 hours (which it wasn't) and then told someone would call me within 48 hours (which they didn't). After 2 more days of automated messages telling me they're too busy to take my call I've emailed to the next level and demanded answers.

At my old address I had letters go missing at least every couple of months and nothing was ever done about it apart from getting a book of stamps as an apology (woopie doo!). I once complained to the rather slack postman we had about the poor service and he started shouting abuse at me up the street and told me he would make sure my letters were always the last to be delivered from now on. When I complained about his attitude the manager didn't call me back then either.

Another example of their incompetence is that the previous owner of my house was a postman and one morning after I'd lived here for about a month the dorrbell rung at 4.30 am. When I finally had to answer the door as they were insistently ringing the bell I found a pstal worker at the door come to pick his colleague up who was late for work. When I said he'd moved a month ago he asked me where he'd moved too!!!!

Don't get me wrong, the Royal Mail do get things right a lot of the time and I know they have a heavy workload. The problem is they also get things wrong a lot of the time and it's made worse because they don't even have an effective complaints procedure and seem to make it as difficult for the customer to complain and get any recompense as possible. I'm sure if the Queen was dependant on the Roal Mail for all her post it wouldn't be Royal for very long.

Summary: A postal (dis)service which needs an overhaul of their practices and complaints policies.