Pete vs the Royal Mail – Part 1
Calm down dear… it’s only a blog post.
Those who know me well, know that one of my pet hates is poor customer service. I admit it – it drives me nuts. It also drives me to make a complaint, and to keep complaining until I get a result.
Since January, I’ve been in dispute with Royal Mail, and a letter from them today has me bouncing off the walls. I’m venting my frustration on those poor souls who read my occasional blog posts, mainly because the cat just doesn’t understand the formal complaints process.
In a nutshell, after moving house a year or so back, I told the Royal Mail that I’d moved, and to redirect my business post to the new address. They wrote to confirm the change, and all should have been well.
It transpires that all was not as well as expected, and for months, my mail’s been bounced as “gone away”. I paid a visit to the local delivery office, to be told that Head Office hadn’t notified them of the change, and they’d fix it. A call to Head Office in Plymouth confirmed that a mistake had indeed been made, and they’d get back to me.
In due course, a letter arrived confirming that the delivery office didn’t know about the change of address until I went in. This is true… but unhelpful, as I knew that.
So, another phone call. “Oh dear”, she said, before agreeing that the letter was inappropriate. “Leave it with me”. Nothing.
With phone calls getting me nowhere, I wrote a letter (after all, perhaps Royal Mail like getting letters, and the revenue from my stamp). It was the reply to this letter that got to me today.
Again, I’m told that the Delivery Office weren’t told until January this year, despite Royal Mail’s letter in March 2010 confirming the new details. Then:
“Having reviewed the details of your claim, my manager and I feel that our colleague dealt appropriately with your complaint. Therefore I cannot change the original decision or take any further action”.
So, a business mail service paid for in March 2010 has never materialised, I’ve lost lots of mail, Royal Mail’s admitted the error, but they won’t do anything about it and have closed the matter.
This is gonna be fun.
I’m already at phone call number 4, letter number 3, email number 1 and Stage 3 in the official complaints procedure. Apparently, the next step is the Postal Review Panel, then the Postal Redress Service.
Wish me luck!
Like it!
I had to complain about our grumpy postmistress, she told me the parcel I had prepaid on the internet was too long. When I got home I checked and it wasnt!!!. I got a lovely apology from them and said postmistress has even started smiling at customers! I did suggest to here face that maybe there was a course she could go on to do with dealing with people.
Keep at it Pete and let us know what happens
I’ll let you know when I win!
Totally with you Pete. Trying to get compensation out of them when a recorded delivery item went astray was unbelievable. They lost my letter of complaint, then subsequently suggested I should send future complaints by recorded delivery to make sure they got it. I wrote another very strongly worded letter and they replied with no mention of my original complaint! Our local post office is lovely, but Royal Mail customer services is the worst I have ever encountered.
Customer service is like sales, but from a different business angle. Sales is about getting in as much money as possible, whereas CS is about minimising costs to a business. Sales will lie their balls off to get some money in, and CS will do the same to avoid company expenses…. like you staying on the phone trying to tell them what they did wrong. Or going to court over a service they promised.
CS staff have no power, they face the world for corporations but are some of the worst paid people in the corporation. They are given scripts written by who-knows, and are rewarded (superficially) for short call times and closing matters first time. CS staff are never given any ideas about how the business actually works, and have to stick to the same PR image put out by sales….. to the point CS are just part of the PR. Sadly most of the people in CS roles do not realise how they are being played.
These days I avoid CS, I’ll generally give them one chance and then its an email to the CEO/MD/etc.