Royal Mail, why have standards dropped and prices risen?

My son in Cornwall sent his cousin in Bedfordshire a Congrats on your new baby card by Royal Mail. It arrived FOUR YEARS later, bizarrely on his nephew's fourth birthday. You couldn't make it up!

fancyflowers

Like lots of our institutions, standards have fallen.
It's not just Royal Mail.

There are numerous news items about poor standard care in hospitals, including a recent item about a baby boy who died during a procedure which was carried out by a trainee.

There is still a culture of racism and misogyny in the police.

Perhaps it has a connection with the 'gentle parenting ' culture in the UK, whose children are now participating in running these institutions.

Some parents today refuse to hold to schools' rules and complain loudly if their child is disciplined.

I think where the delivery of mail is concerned it might well have to do largely with privatisation where profitability is the driving force.

The 'gentle parenting' culture is fairly recent, many of the postmen and postwomen are generation X - but regardless, blaming the workers for sparse delivery is rather unfair.

Managers instruct that parcels - because they take up more physical space - are delivered as a priority.

'Bulk' mail - like bills and statements are batched, so together with 2nd class mail these items accumulate in the sorting office for several days until the scheduled delivery day, which is why you often receive a lot of mail in one go.

Also parcel delivery often means photos/GPS tracking - and that takes more time - posties can run out of time to deliver letters.

Staffing is a real problem - the turnover is huge. Since 2022, new entrants are put on contracts with lower wages, less benefits and fewer protections compared to the long-term staff.

To run a plc profitably you need to maximise profitable areas and minimise cost and this usually means a reduced service to the public and, if you're on the lower rung of the company hierarchy, a less than attractive job opportunity. So the problem is less to do with gentle parenting and more to do with satisfying the requirements of shareholders.

I have paid to have the last two months mail, redirected from an old address to my new one. I have been asked to collect quite a few letters (three times in three weeks)as they don’t seem to be redirecting all the mail.
Tried to email customer services, you get a reply stating that “new emails to this address are not being monitored or passed on to a team member”??? So you cannot complain by mail. Tried phoning their customer services and the wait time was approximately 50 mins and the call is not free.
I give up. Seems we have to pay for an inferior service and have no way of letting them know how bad it is. 😡

Witzend

Must be lucky here - our postman is brilliant, and I don’t think I’ve had anything go astray. I regularly send parcels via RM Click and Drop - from outer SW London to a charity in rural E Yorkshire- and they virtually always arrive the very next day.

We are SE3 in London and our deliveries are awful. You really are lucky.

Must be lucky here - our postman is brilliant, and I don’t think I’ve had anything go astray. I regularly send parcels via RM Click and Drop - from outer SW London to a charity in rural E Yorkshire- and they virtually always arrive the very next day.

Like lots of our institutions, standards have fallen.
It's not just Royal Mail.

There are numerous news items about poor standard care in hospitals, including a recent item about a baby boy who died during a procedure which was carried out by a trainee.

There is still a culture of racism and misogyny in the police.

Perhaps it has a connection with the 'gentle parenting ' culture in the UK, whose children are now participating in running these institutions.

Some parents today refuse to hold to schools' rules and complain loudly if their child is disciplined.

If something is time-critical I usually use Special Delivery. My daughter paid £10 recently for Special Delivery "guaranteed" next day - it didn't arrive and furthermore because it was due to arrive on the Saturday it didn't get delivered until the Monday. Absolute farce.

Our Mail is dreadful. We have the Radio Times, supposedly delivered weekly. We very often don’t get it at all. I sent two books to a publisher…correct address, Lost. We very rarely see the postman perhaps once or twice a week.

I recently sent a card to one of my GCs and after I had posted it I realised that I hadn’t put a stamp on it! I messaged my daughter to let her know and told her I’d pay the fine.

The card arrived at their house, which is in a different county, the following morning and no fine!

The moral of the story seems to be to send your post without a stamp!

I sent an Easter parcel to my nieces last week.

I took it into the Post Office 10.15am Monday morning, it was delivered to my sister 9.30am following morning.

Obviously it’s a hit and miss service, maybe postcode depending 🤷‍♀️

Delivery here is terrible. We don't get anything for about a week then a load all on the same day.

A birthday card I sent to the next county took 10 days!

Our postman said they are told to prioritise parcels

Our mail is very bad, we get nothing for ages then lots of letters in one go, some sent weeks before. A couple of hospital appointments didn’t arrive and if it wasn’t for a reminder on my DHs phone we would have missed the appointments. Also reminders don’t include the location of the appointment and any way the outpatient needs to prepare.
Also a parcel didn’t arrive and birthday cards we sent in good time arrived late.
I now don’t order from any supplier who uses RM if I can help it.

I seem to get my letters OK locally , mind you when I am out the number of Royal Mail HGV`s going between the main sorting depots is amazing , mainly my way between the depot at Crick /Rugby borders and Swindon as to regional distribution .
Mick