sending and receiving becoming worse and worse (Royal Mail)

Member Name: bruffyboy

Product:	Royal Mail
Date:	24/12/08 (78 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: High success rate for items arriving at destination

Disadvantages: long qeues, late deliveries, poor customer care

There are two major sides to Royal Mail: sending and receiving mail.

RECEIVING MAIL:
Over the past couple of years, Royal Mail has got worst and worst in my opinion. To begin with, deliveries no longer come early in the morning (our average is around midday). This is a real pain in the bum, as we're always out at this time, and therefore get the card through the door saying 'please come and collect your item from our delivery centre'. Now, our local delivery centre is around 5 miles away, and since we have no car it's a real pain to get to (not on a major bus route either). Royal Mail do have another option - you can book a redelivery, which we end up having to do for a Saturday when we can be in, and can end up spending half a day waiting for the delivery.

It's a real case of customer care not being a priority, as they know early morning is the best time to catch people.

SENDING MAIL:
I've sent a couple of hundred things around the world in the last few months (Ebay) and only 3 have not arrived. I think that's not bad, but you can make your own mind up there. To post an item, I go to the large city centre branch, and there is always a big qeue. The annoying thing is there are around 10 counters at the post office, but only 3 are manned on an average day. There were around 20 of us in the cue the other day, and only 3 staff; again this is a frustrating side of their cost cutting antics - get some more staff on the go on a busy Saturday would you?

In conclusion, Royal Mail know they own the monopoly on letter delivery, and make very little effort to look after customers who have nowhere else to go.

Summary: There isn't much of an option really is there?