Thetownend.com

i phoned the customer care team about something (none recorded) being sent back after 19 days. 19 days is exactly 2 days short of the stated 3 weeks= annoying.

whilst on the phone i mentioned the other parcel note i had didn't have an item number and getting it redelivered via the internet was proving some hassle as a result and the cocks at hawksworth never answering the phone "oh i'll get that sent for you". she arranged for it to be sent to the closest post office to me, checked two days running after it was meant to be there following the redelivery and the guy says "hawksworth don't deliver here".

and the fucking email response i got from them is a copy/paste job that addresses none of the points i've made

AND when i phone up someone tells me "yeah that means it's been lost"...so why have a fucking section about redelivery when they know it's lost?

they've had a response on their contactus email address for 7 working days and i've still not received a response

GRR


please share with me your tales of woe or love of these red bastards

Are you expecting a parcel? What have you ordered?

i bought some ties and cufflinks

rock n roll me

Once upon a time I witnessed a postie dispatching a bag full of letters in to a public bin.  When I reported this to the Royal Mail, they said they would investigate.  Months later I received a letter saying the matter had been dealt with.  When I rang up to see what they had done, it turned out that "dealt with" meant "we don't believe you".

Worst customer service I have encountered outside of NTL.

RM are just shite. No point in even complaining because you'll find the customer service is worse than the actualy postal service. One day my post might actually get delivered before midday. I await with baited breath.

that's outrageous, i'd believe you.

i find it hard to believe that you phone customer service and they arrange redelivery to one of their post offices and somehow the depot doesn't deliver there, and subsequently it's lost...it's farcical

Grumble,grumble,Red Elastic Bands dropped everywhere,grumble.

Nah I think they do a great job,specially Ralphy!

it sounds awful but i am enjoying complaining, i have asked for my complaint to be escalated to the persons boss and i've spoken to someone at customer services who has said they've received the email

i am a tragic individual and work in a complaints department

i like collecting the rubber bands, and i also like Ralphy! i've got an issue with them losing things though :)

It is farcical - but that's what you get from Royal Mail.  One of my more eloquent mates once went on a drunken rant about them concluding "I would letter bomb the bastards but they'd only fucking post it to me gran."

sigh

well that made me feel better, i look forward to them emailing me a response tomorrow :)

Everyone loves a complaint every now and again though.

very true Rich

the one that gets me, and to be fair its not just RM - city link are far worse - is when you order a parcel.  invariably you end up driving 20miles to some god forsaken industrial estate to pick it up yourself, after waiting a week to make sure its got back to the depot.  when you order something on the web, i wish there was an option for "just send it straight to the effing depot and i'll pick it up there in a week's time" rather than go through the charade of them pretending they have the parcel in the van when they chuck the "sorry you were out" form in the general direction of your letterbox.

20 miles? Where do you live?

If you ring them up they will redeliver at a suitable time to you.

For my rants about Royal Mail, please see here (http://thetownend.com/index.php/topic,19355.msg364086/topicseen.html#msg364086), here (http://thetownend.com/index.php/topic,31699.msg620292/topicseen.html#msg620292) and here (http://thetownend.com/index.php/topic,24564.msg462038.html#msg462038).

Am I the only one who thinks overall they're good?

I think they're reasonably good value for money.

If you have to send something really valuable of delicate then use a courier. Or special delivery, which is usually pretty good.

No, I think they're pretty much crap overall. Prices have consistently gone up, standard of service has consistently gone down.

10 years ago when you got two deliveries a day, a first class stamp meant it would get there the next day and guaranteed delivery meant guaranteed I was more than happy with the serivce.

Now I only get one delivery a day which usually isn't until about 2pm, a first class stamp means my letter might get there sometime in the next two weeks and guaranteed means they'll try but it might not actually make it I'm very disappointed with the service.

But isn't that what we should expect by any government run agency ?
Politicians can't run the house of commons let alone an industry or country

I don't actually use the royal mail a great deal these days tbh.

Given they have a monopoly they could be charging a lot more couldn't they? Altho I guess there is someone checking they don't put up prices to the extreme.

The new pricing according to size is a bit annoying.

I always liked RM and my postie is great....However....i get fucked off with this 'large envelope' charge...they have a tiny slit thing which they show the letter to and say "Sorry too large".

Bollox!

Except it was 100% pukka nationalised government-run back in the period when Samdy was quoting as saying he was happy with it. It's only gone downhill since being quasi-privatised and having all these "really smart guys" from the private sector brought in to run it - exhibit A, Adam Crozier. So, no, not really

What Pauld just said.

I'm also of the opinion that service levels are good compared to some of their competitors.

I feel a strike coming on. Spuddy, Leggett you in?  :nerner:

Perhaps quality or service varies widely according to where you are etc? Its probably important people do complain if post goes missing etc otherwise they might assume it got delivered fine and won't be aware of it in their statistics (not sure how they monitor lost mail and lateness). Having said that I can understand if people can't be bothered.

I will also admit I think I am a bit biased in favour of Royal Mail cos my grandad worked for them all his life and my dad was also a postie for a few months after he was made redundant from another job once.

Fucking Royal Mail.......

I have had numerous problems, made numerous complaints, got fucking nowhere. So yes, their Customer Service sucks. That said, when it works, I find it satisfactory. When it doesn't work, it often goes spectacularly wrong (as in Bennett's example).

I just wish they could train their 'delivery persons' to SHUT THE FUCKING GATE BEHIND THEM  >:(

spot on!
people are moaning about the service they get,but blame the posties for striking against the changes.

i appear to be getting no response to my second email and numerous phone calls...

i've claimed the money back BUT i find it outrageous this can be considered a decent response:

Dear Mr Bennett

Thank you for email which raises a number if issues, I will try answer each one in turn.

Firstly, I'm sorry to hear of the problems you're experiencing in contacting your local Delivery Office to arrange the redelivery of an item of mail.

Please be assured that we do all we can to respond to customer calls at the Delivery Office: however, it can become more difficult to do so during times when we have increased numbers of customers visiting the Delivery Office, or when staffing levels dictate that we need to focus more resource on dealing with customers mail as a priority.

If you should experience problems contacting your local Delivery Office again, you may wish to consider arranging a redelivery using our Online Redelivery service, which is available 24 hours a day. The following link will take you to the Redelivery section of our website directly:

www.royalmail.com/redelivery

Please be aware that we need to allow sufficient time for your item to be returned your Delivery Office after the initial delivery attempt. This is because some mail is returned through our network via your local Post Office counter or a Post Box nearby. This usually happens the same day however, so the item will normally be available for collection or redelivery within 48 hours.

Our aim is to ensure that mail is delivered to our customers securely and on time, and I fully appreciate the inconvenience caused when this is not possible. Mail would normally be forwarded to a Post Office designated by the customer within the same postcode area.

I'm very sorry for the problems you've had with an item of mail that has been returned to its sender instead of being redelivered. Our aim is to ensure that mail is delivered to our customers securely and on time, and I fully appreciate the inconvenience caused when this doesn't happen

Our aim is to ensure that mail is delivered to our customers securely and on time, and I fully appreciate the inconvenience caused when this is not possible.

I have therefore reported this failure to the manager of your local Delivery Office and requested that steps be taken to ensure that any future redelivery requests are handled appropriately.

As some time has now passed since you sent us your original email, I'm hopeful that that your item has now been delivered by us or collected by you. However, if this is not the case, it is likely that the item has been returned to its sender. If a return address was not visible however, the item may have been sent to our National Returns Centre - where we take steps to identify the sender's details and return the mail to them. Please be aware that this process can take several weeks to complete.

If you know who sent you this item, you may wish to contact them to make them aware that the item may be returned to them. If necessary, they may then be able to repost the item to you or provide an alternative. I appreciate the delay and inconvenience this causes and apologise sincerely
for that.
 
Once again, please accept my apologies, on behalf of Royal Mail, for the problems you've had. I hope that the information and action above concludes this matter but if you do need to contact us again, please quote reference *******

I quite liked the delivery note left for a package I was expecting. I was actually in the house at the time but nobody tried to get my attention by doing the obvious thing and knocking on the door.

When I found the 'sorry you were out' note they had left, the time on it was actually in the future. Very bizzare.

I think it's quite good you can send a letter anywhere in the country for a few pence, but I will concede the service has gone downhill.

Switched off after 'Dear Mr BE..................'  zzzzzz

that's neither constructive or clever :(

I quite like the way Royal Mail repeated the same thing one line after writing it originally.

Other than that it doesn't really explain much, although I quite like the way Royal Mail have repeated the same thing one line after writing it originally.

3 times actually. Numpties.

If they can't write a letter then how the fuck are they going to work out how to deliver them!

my response makes reference to how the letter is the work of keys Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, which is a shame as there are lots of other keys to use

still no response!

when i lived in southampton, city link depot was just outside winchester - 11 miles there, 11 miles back.  and to whoever said 'if you phone them up they will redeliver', don't make me laugh !  in the unlikely event they answer the phone, they can't tie down the time to any better than am or pm, and frankly its makes more economic sense for me to go to the depot after work, rather than take half a day off

City Link are awful. I'll agree with you on that one. The bastards never answer their phone. Fucking cunts.

should anyone be interested here's the response i received that, again, doesn't really hit the mark. if you wish please treat it as a spot the error game (there are no prizes for this game):

Dear Mr Bennett

Thank you for your email. I am sorry you feel our response to your
complaint is not acceptable.

I will again try to answer each point in turn:

1. Can you please confirm which item you are referring, I can only find
one re-delivery request which is for the item below.

2. Having checked our re-delivery system I can only find one request for
re-delivery for a card which was originally left on the 9 June 2009. I
checked our records and noticed that your local Delivery Office does not
deliver to the Post Office you asked to collect your mail from. As a result
of this, they were unable to redeliver your item as requested. Normally,
our Online Redelivery system should check that your local Delivery Office
delivers to the Post Office you selected before accepting your request. On
these occasions as the request was input internally this was missed, I can
now only apologise. If I could explain that we can only redeliver mail to
an address served by the same Delivery Office as your own address, i.e.
where we hold the undelivered item whilst awaiting further instruction

3. I can assure you the reply you received was not a standard letter we
take all customer complaint seriously.


4. I apologise, I should not have included this information in my
previous reply.


5. I would like to explain that under the Universal Postal Agreement,
because your item was posted from Hong Kong any enquiries regarding a
refund have to be initiated in the country of origin. May I therefore
suggest that you contact the senders and ask them to provide their postal
administration with the posting details. They may also be able to offer
you a refund or a replacement.

6. In regards to your claim for compensation for distress and/or
inconvenience, on this occasion I am unable to meet your claim as this is
not covered under the product compensation scheme.

Please accept my sincere apologies for any inconvenience which may have
been caused, I do understand when things go wrong you may feel disappointed
with the service received. Please also accept my assurance that when rare
instances like this occur we will do all we can to put things right and use
your information to improve the service we offer our customers and help
prevent incidents from happening in the future


I hope the above information concludes this matter for you but if you do
need to contact us again, please remember to quote your unique reference
number