A word of advice when dealing with royal mail

I ordered a saitek eclipse keyboard over amazon last week, when it came on saturday I wasnt in so we received a red "you were out" slip.

So i went to the website and arranged for the item to be dropped off with my local post office on tuesday (this was last saturday).

Imagine my dismay when i went to collect on tuesday and it wasnt there. The staff kindly told me that it was their experience that since i had used the online redelivery service i would be lucky to recieve it this week! I then tried to contact royal mail to get this sorted and found that it was literally impossible to get through to the complaints service, it either tells you to try later or leaves you in a queue and then puts the phone down on you (as you can imagine as this point i am absolutely seething).

After around two hours of calling various numbers i finally got through to customer services who assured me that they would send an email to the delivery office and have them call me "by friday" to sort this out. I went to my local branch again yesterday (thursday) but no luck. I am off on fridays so today i got a taxi to the sorting office and picked up my parcel, which cost me a tenner, but at least i had my keyboard and it wasnt going to get lost or stamped on or whatever.

The moral of the story is this: avoid royal mail at all costs. But if you find yourself with a red delivery slip just pick the item up asap from the sorting office, dont be fooled by the redelivery options because in my experience the staff view these requests with about as little respect and urgency as they can manage.

 

blah :-/

i live right next door to my sorting office. sucks to be you.

 

Sad to hear stuff like that, unfortunately RM is the only option for me, 1 hour bustrip and 20 mins walk from busstop to citylink depot (all other major couriers are right next to them) and back isnt funny... rm on the other hand is across the street.

 

blah

 

Yup, easiest way is to goto the sorting office. Don't arse about with re-delivery as chances are it'll end up back at the sorting office anyway!

 

Yeah exactly, and who wants to wait more when you know its so close

 

on another note, i have been waiting for a parcel (fallout 3 fallout 3 fallout 3) to be delivered today, RM too. needed a shower, postponed and was a smelly mofe up until now when i gave up, assumed since post already came, it will arrive tomorrow. got in shower. lathered up. knock on door.



ah well, i'll go pick up tomorrow,.

 

If I'm not in they take it back to the Post Office, so no need to go to the sorting office I just pop down the street and pick it up.

 

Now THAT is annoying

It just winds me up dealing with them as there is always the underlying feeling that no one gives two shiny ****s

I know this can be largely put down to government cut backs etc etc. It just strikes me that if you are going to offer a service such as redelivery to a local branch then make sure you can carry it out, if you cant then you shouldnt offer it surely? I worked in the law industry for four years and none of the firms i worked for ever offered a service unless they knew they could carry it out without recieving complaints, its practically the basics of business.

 

My postie signs most of our deliveries for us! top bloke!

When i have been the sorting office in town, i've over heard people mentioning the on-line redelivery service being rubbish, the Postwoman behind the counter said that its useless as it just generates an email sent to "them upstairs" and they rarely deal with it on time, so its best phone or go to the office as stated.

 

/\ Exactly my point, so why offer a service that you know is fundamentally broken

 

Stupidity?

 

QFFT

 

then where are you if you need to track something thats been signed for???

 

Mate I hate royal mail at the moment, what ever happened to parcel deliveries being early morning? Its a complete lottery what time of day they come, but normally they manage to time it perfectly for when I've finally given in and got in the shower, and the sorting office is just an annoying distance away which basically requires a train journey to get to

 

No, avoid using on-line communication, speak to a real person to sort out a redelivery.

 

and, therefore, completely disregard all their advertised services?

just in case they also get completely ignored and you're left in the lurch

 

Thats just as bad.

 

im quite surprised actually, i had a "you were out" slip on wednesday, sorted out redelivery for today, and all went well.

 

Week before last I missed a delivery on the thursday, went online, arranged redelivery on the saturday. no problems at all.