HELP: Let's make the post office better for sole traders!

[Katy]

Hi everyone,

I have a really nice opportunity to make a difference to your post office experience, I can't reveal all, but I would really like your help in my research. I would really appreciate if a few people could answer these questions and maybe we can get a discussion going....

How often do you use the post office for your business and personal use?

Do you use your local post office or a larger city center post office? And why?

What services do you use from the post office?

How was your last experience at the post office? How did it make you feel?

As an online trader what is your relationship with the post office?

What would be your DREAM SERVICE from the post office?

Thank you in advance.

Katy

[Anna Weller of BBLB]

Katy you've mentioned one of the banes of our business life . . . but in the interests of keeping our sanity we will restrict ourselves to just the four wishes. We use the Royal Mails online postage service (online only because we use Macs day to day and they haven't developed a desktop application for Macs).

Wishes:

1) An online system that had actually been road tested and signed off by customers would be great. The number of workflow flaws in the system are really surprising for a company of this size. This ranges from an incredibly short timeout period so you are continually logging back in again, a really poorly executed address book, address is too long or in the wrong field errors when the Royal Mail system itself has populated the address fields from its own database, a label selection indicator that is upside down, techno speak error messages rather than customer friendly ones, all the way through to having far too may steps to generate a single postage label.

2) A site that is available 24/7 or if that is not possible communicates with its customer base to  provide notice when maintenance is required. Most companies of this size would have mirror sites to guarantee availability. The online postal service has been down an unacceptable amount since a failed system upgrade just prior to Christmas (and I hope the person who ultimately decided to undertake a system upgrade prior to the Christmas peak period has been shot!)

3) Aside from the online system it would be good if 'undelivered' post that has a prominent returns address could be returned in good time or could at least be tracked. I don't know where they languish but somewhere there must be a room full of 'lost' parcels because in time they escape and make their way home again!

There is more but I will leave it there :-)

Anna

 

[Katy]

Thanks for getting back to me Anna,

Your answers will be really useful. Did you know that the Royal Mail and the Post Office are twos separate companies? The Post Office enlist the services of the Royal mail to deliver letters and parcels but they are purely the "shopfront", the Post office also has many other services. (they even do telephone and broadband)

I wonder if you use the Royal Mail website to make your postage labels? What if the post office were able to provide you with a more reliable way (than the royal mail) to make your postage labels online a simple tool (or app for your mac) that could track and label, would you use it, and what else would you want it to do... possibilities could be too arrange drop off times at post office or pick up times from your workplace  ...

Thanks again

Katy

Anna Weller of BBLB said:

Katy you've mentioned one of the banes of our business life . . . but in the interests of keeping our sanity we will restrict ourselves to just the four wishes. We use the Royal Mails online postage service (online only because we use Macs day to day and they haven't developed a desktop application for Macs).

Wishes:

1) An online system that had actually been road tested and signed off by customers would be great. The number of workflow flaws in the system are really surprising for a company of this size. This ranges from an incredibly short timeout period so you are continually logging back in again, a really poorly executed address book, address is too long or in the wrong field errors when the Royal Mail system itself has populated the address fields from its own database, a label selection indicator that is upside down, techno speak error messages rather than customer friendly ones, all the way through to having far too may steps to generate a single postage label.

2) A site that is available 24/7 or if that is not possible communicates with its customer base to  provide notice when maintenance is required. Most companies of this size would have mirror sites to guarantee availability. The online postal service has been down an unacceptable amount since a failed system upgrade just prior to Christmas (and I hope the person who ultimately decided to undertake a system upgrade prior to the Christmas peak period has been shot!)

3) Aside from the online system it would be good if 'undelivered' post that has a prominent returns address could be returned in good time or could at least be tracked. I don't know where they languish but somewhere there must be a room full of 'lost' parcels because in time they escape and make their way home again!

There is more but I will leave it there :-)

Anna

 

[Anna Weller of BBLB]

I've always lumped the two together! If the Post Office were to create an online postal service that provided pre-paid label printing (including overseas, business logo and return address), a customer address book for ease of address selection, and account management providing visibility to monthly spend and a log of labels generated then we would most certainly be interested in trialling this . . . it couldn't be any worse then the Royal Mail offering (which is currently down as I write!) 

Our local sorting office is for the chop in the next few months so a collection / courier service would be good and then it basically comes down to tracking our packages to their destination. We currently send 1st Class which means as soon as it leaves us we have little idea where it is and have to play a waiting game. Something isn't deemed lost for 15 working days which puts us in a difficult position with our customers in terms of refunds or replacement goods as they are expecting their package next day.

Hope this helps with your research,

Anna