| Royal
Mail's changes to the standard delivery services
are going to cause all sorts of problems for Buckinghamshire
businesses. When they were first announced we were
led to believe that although there would be fewer
deliveries, there would also be a marked improvement
in efficiency. Of course
postal services have been deteriorating for years
and while charges go up attention to customer
satisfaction has gone down. In fact as the receivers
of mail we find ourselves faced with a pretty
chaotic situation and frequently ringing the local
sorting office to check whether or not there is
going to be a delivery on that day!
We all thought that the rapid development
of e-mail traffic would greatly improve business
communications take the weight of the postal service.
But in just one sorting office alone, Gerrards
Cross, the amount of mail being processed each
day has risen by around 50% according to inside
sources.
In the meantime postmen's hours
have been reduced and several of them have resigned
because their jobs are no longer tenable under
the circumstances.
Surely the Royal Mail system as
it was even a couple of years ago was much better
than it is today. It wasn't broken then so why
mend it now?
However, Royal Mail has said that
by prior arrangement you can collect your own
mail from your local sorting office! So there
must be some enterprising person out there, perhaps
an ex-postman, who could come to some official
arrangement with local businesses and private
householders to pick up their mail for them at
a specific time.
Royal Mail may well turn its nose
up at such a suggestion but if it's what popular
demand requires then presumably there's not a
lot they can do about it! After all it's they
who have created the necessity.
[ENDS]
Andrew Leech, Cross Reference Tel: 01753 884216
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