Postcomm Survey Shows Post Remains Central

The Communication Workers Union today (Monday) welcomes evidence from Postcomm’s survey into customer satisfaction which shows the high importance of mail to businesses and strong customer satisfaction results.

The survey finds that reliability and consistency of delivery of mail is the key driver of overall satisfaction. While the survey divides results between Royal Mail and its competitors, delivery is predominantly the responsibility of Royal Mail and CWU believes the company should receive greater recognition from the regulator for this.

Dave Ward, CWU deputy general secretary, said:

“Royal Mail remains the only end-to-end mail carrier, delivering the ‘final mile’ part of the journey for most of its competitors’ mail. As such, it’s responsible for both its own performance and that of the majority of other mail companies.

Royal Mail delivery workers are known by name and character to many customers and it is largely down to their hard work and consistency that customer satisfaction rates so high.

It’s also significant to see over half of businesses regard post as either core or critical. While mail volumes have fallen, the importance of mail has not. Continued innovation and transformation will help to ensure mail services continue to give excellent quality of service.”

Postcomm issued the following press release:

Public And Businesses Happy With Postal Services

29 March 2010

The majority of people – ranging from the ordinary householder, to a small business and all the way to a large corporation – are happy with their postal services, new research reveals.

The data was gathered during the Royal Mail postal workers’ industrial action late last year and a time of falling mail volumes as a result of the economic recession and the growth of digital media.

The findings come from two surveys carried out by Postcomm, the regulator for postal services. One spoke to 1,116 residential customers and 500 small and medium-sized companies and the other spoke to 800 businesses in the UK which spend more than £5,000 a year on mail. (The latter refers to licensed area mail which weighs less than 350g and costs less than a pound to send.)

The results revealed that eight out of 10 householders and small businesses are satisfied with Royal Mail, and around half of householders are very satisfied with the company. Larger mailers (companies that spend more than £5,000 on mail services), who have a choice of postal providers, rated Royal Mail as well as its rivals eight out of 10 for satisfaction with the service they receive.

Tim Brown, chief executive of Postcomm, said: “These are difficult times for post but these results show that despite falling volumes in mail as a result of the changing world – and even despite strike action – customers say they’re generally pretty happy with their postal services, whether they get them from Royal Mail or rival operators.”
 
When residential customers and small businesses were asked to rate their satisfaction with specific aspects of the Royal Mail service, the number of days mail is delivered each week and the proximity of the post box were given the highest ratings.

But when householders or small to medium businesses experience mis-delivered, damaged, lost or delayed mail, or have made a complaint, their satisfaction rating drops quite dramatically. And the majority of complainants are not satisfied with the way Royal Mail handled their complaints, scoring parts of the complaints service an average of five out of 10 or lower.

Larger mailers  who were asked to rate the quality of service they received from Royal Mail and their competitors (such as DHL, UK Mail, DX Network Services, Secure Mail Services and TNT Post), scored them as virtually equal - 7.4 out of 10 for Royal Mail - 7.6 out of 10 for their rivals.

But the gap widens a little when the same companies are asked their likelihood to recommend the service to other businesses. On a scale of one to 10, where one is not at all likely to recommend and 10 is very likely, rival operators average 7.7 out of 10 and Royal Mail averages 7.4 out of 10.

Curiously despite how satisfied larger mailers are with Royal Mail, their loyalty to the company has decreased. The percentage of respondents who said they would never move their mail to a rival has almost halved in the latest findings compared to 2007 survey results.

The survey of householders and small and medium sized businesses was carried out over the phone by Ipsos MORI. Data was weighted to be representative of the UK population of postal users and small to medium sized businesses. The survey of businesses that spend over £5,000 on mail was carried out over the phone by ORC International.

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