Royal Mail is to trial new Sunday services this summer.
There are two parts to this experiment. Firstly, Royal Mail will pilot parcel deliveries to the door within the M25. Obviously some other firms have already introduced this service.
Secondly, the top 100 busiest Parcel Sorting offices will open on Sundays for parcel collection. Strangely I think this might be more powerful. I am frequently astonished by the peculiar hours that they can be open.
Brighton sorting office at 12:30 on a Saturday is a sight to behold. A bedraggled, hungover queue snakes well out of the door waiting to step in and get their purchases. But come half twelve a Royal Mail member of staff joins the end of the line and no one else is allowed to join. Latecomers are turned away: which has always struck me as perverse and not a very sensible way of clearing the parcel backlog inside.
I’d say a review of times would be a good idea too. Include more afternoons, longer hours and Saturdays and a window on Sunday and we’ll be making progress.
Moya Greene, RM CEO says: “Through these new Sunday services we are exploring ways to improve our flexibility and provide more options for people to receive items they have ordered online. The support of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has enabled us to respond quickly to a changing market.
The CWU’s Dave Ward said: “Royal Mail’s announcement about expanding delivery and collection services to seven-days-a-week is an exciting innovation which we welcome. We have worked closely with Royal Mail to develop how best we can go forward to grow the company together and improve the services for customers.”
As long as it’s just parcels arriving on a Sunday, I don’t mind. But I don’t want to greet a Sunday morning with a bloody gas bill or the latest missive from HMRC.
The new Royal Mail services are expected to start later in the Summer. Parcelforce will begin Sunday deliveries in June.
One Response
Peverse indeed of the Brighton SO!
As an online business, do welcome this initiative but wish they could improve existing service first. Personal bug bear is the number of times a Signed For item isn’t and the somewhat lamentable “track & trace” service (something of a misnomer) states “we have your item”.
We often have overseas clients purchase a gift box for delivery in the UK and to be fair, when it works Signed For First is great but all too often no signature is taken and there is no way of knowing package has actually been delivered. We like to confirm delivery for the client but this falls down if RM don’t follow through at their end and who ends up looking stupid and inefficient – the small business of course!