We heard an interesting rumour from Terry, a Tamebay reader, that Royal Mail had GPS map tracking on parcels. Naturally we wanted to find out more and Royal Mail told us that it was one of the many pilots they run and were kind enough to share some information.
“We ran a very small trial in November and December among a group of volunteer recipients and postmen/women on selected delivery routes. Participants in the trial received SMS/email notifications on the day of delivery of Tracked 24 and 48 parcels with 2D barcodes, linking to a live map of their delivery route.
A position in the delivery queue was given eg, ‘we are 5 deliveries away’. However, no estimated delivery window was provided. Participants could follow their delivery in real time, allowing them to plan their day in the knowledge that they had visibility of when the delivery would be made. This was small trial. The results are not yet available and we have no current plans to roll it out further.”
Even though this was a pilot, it’s very apparent that just about every carrier in the country are experimenting and developing their services. Consumers are becoming ever more demanding and it’s good to know that Royal Mail are just as innovative as their competitors. Personally I’d love to see live tracking rolled out by our postal service.
This isn’t the only innovation Royal Mail are doing, recently they rolled out their ‘Labels to Go’ self service postage service at Delivery Offices.
