It’s interesting how you take a service for granted until it’s threatened. Such it is with the Post Office. We frank our mail, put it in its red or green pouches, take it to the Post Office and hope it will be delivered.
But recently we received a letter from the Post Office – our local branch was under threat, but don’t worry, they said, you’ll be able to use the other "local" branch, a mile away.
Now we usually put our pouches into the post boxes that dot the streets, but we often have to post packages and that’s when we use the local Post Office. I’ve been in there only once when there hasn’t been a queue and at certain times of the day it stretches out into the street.
How could they think of closing it? Well, in the end, after widespread protests, they didn’t. But It set me thinking about the service the Royal Mail and Post Office and the private equivalents offer. Frankly, it’s not terribly good, is it?.
These days we can send documents by e-mail, by file transfer protocol, by fax... loads more ways than just 20 years ago. I can download by ftp a whole book, covers and all, by PDF (I don’t know what the initials stand for and I don’t want to know because it works and that’s all that counts).
But if you want to send a hard copy you rely on the post or a private firm. And that’s where the problem starts. We have a street number and a post office box number for our business and we regularly run little surveys (not terribly scientific) which seems to show us that there is little chance of getting any PO Box number post on a Monday or a Saturday.
It got so bad recently that we were looking at other ways to get our post delivered. A proof reader in Stoke sent some of his work back, and knowing it was urgent, had it sent by recorded delivery. This was on a Thursday; when it had not arrived by the following Monday, I rang to complain at our local sorting office.
Recorded delivery is just "safe" first-class post, I was told, and that can take up to five working days. "If you wanted it next day delivery, it should have been sent guaranteed delivery," they said, almost seeming to revel in the inconvenience this had caused. When I mentioned this to the proof reader, he, like most people, was under the impression that "recorded" was best. And what ever happened to the idea that first-class post itself guaranteed next day delivery?
On its website, the Post Office says: "First-class mail is ideal if you want your letter or packet to be delivered the next working day, including Saturday." I have looked, long and hard, and I have not been able to find any mention of five working days at all.
It’s enough to make you switch to a private firm, but they are just as bad. We waited at the office all day for one urgent package and found that the driver had slipped a card through the letter box telling us that he had tried to deliver. So we arranged a time for re-delivery. He missed that three times.
You often find, too, that a reputable firm uses another less reliable courier for the last bit of the journey.
And the last time we had to send something back, they failed to meet the pick-up date three times.
I am aware that person who edits my work hates this column to turn into a rant. But it’s difficult to think of anything constructive to say about the postal delivery system other than it seems to be close to collapse.
I seem to remember when I was a boy that you could post a local letter in the morning and it would be delivered in the afternoon. But, of course, in those days the sun always shone and the poor old postman wasn’t expected to deliver piles of junk mail that was binned as soon as it was received.
It is vital for SMEs that the Royal Mail survives. In my old-fashioned view it ought to be a "service" and not a "business".
The delivery of letters and parcels ought to be the main purpose but now the Post Office wants to offer us loans, savings, investments, banking, insurance and a credit card and mortgages.
While this will have little to do with the man or woman who delivers your letters, I hope the Royal Mail's Adam Crozier and chairman Allan Leighton (funny how these football men stick together; Crozier was at the FA and Leighton is involved with Leeds United) realise that these are the most important players in their organisation.
Randall Northam asks that, if you wish to contact him, then rather than using the postal system, you should e-mail him at randall@sportsbooks.ltd.uk
