Royal Mail Loses Amazon Contract

ayase

ayase

State Alchemist
Thought this might be of interest to anyone who does a lot of online ordering:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/07/royal-mail-amazon-postal-strikes?CMP=AFCYAH

The bad news is it's gone to Home Delivery Network. I hate Home Delivery Network. They can turn up at any time during the day, and if they can't deliver they take the parcel back to their depot at York and I have to ring their unhelpful 'customer services' to arrange delivery on another day (usually of their choice - you're given limited options and they seem to regard it as your fault it wasn't delivered the first time because you weren't at home) and they still can't guarantee what time it will turn up. On one occasion they even failed to deliver when I was in because the driver didn't bother to read the parcel very closely - I know because they left a card with the wrong flat number on it.

So well done Royal Mail. Once again industrial action has the opposite of the intended effect by ruining the business in question and turning the inconvenienced population against them into the bargain. You'd have thought they'd have learned back in the Winter of Discontent.
 
Well now I have even less reason to buy from amazon. Royal Mail should be banned from going on strike. To be honest, all public services should be banned from striking.
 
Yesterday I signed a contract for the company I work at to switch all of its thousands of despatches per week from Royal Mail to another service. The courier companies I spoke to when setting it up were very candid about things, saying that they were thrilled at how much extra work they were getting.

Royal Mail will kill itself soon if the striking workers don't sort themselves out. Christmas is coming and companies care more about their reputation than the savings Royal Mail's rates offer. My company's reputation has plummeted since the strikes with "guaranteed next day" parcels taking over a week just to cross London; many standard First Class parcels simply never arrive at all. I can't begin to imagine how many online businesses must be looking elsewhere to avoid a huge customer backlash when the month long delays at the moment increase further in the Christmas rush.

Not a fan of HDN though either. I rate my chances of ever receiving items slightly higher with them than with RM now, even if HDN do tend to turn up at 9pm in an unmarked white van in the most suspicious way possible.

R
 
So is this strike mainly affecting London? I ask because I haven't had any trouble with deliveries... except the Satoshi Urushihara art book that shipped a while back from YesAsia, who I believe re-ship from West London...

Regarding Amazon, it could be worse. In the past they've used Citylink.
 
I wouldnt mind them dropping royal mail if they werent using a pile of idiots called HDN. These people only employ agency drivers who will at best knock silently on your door and card you, they also have next to no depots despite being a supposed national company. Looks like I wont be buying from amazon in any rush ever again.
 
Wonderful ¬_¬

At first i thought. "excellent now when people order things they won't be damaged" then i read others posts and realised....."royal mail is tha best that we've got? ahh bollocks"
I agree with whoever said they shouldn't be allowed to strike... I work for the NHS, we have Unions....yet were not allowed to strike. people need their post as much as their healthcare.

i think its disgraceful. people get bills for a reason, if they don't get them they could end up in serious problems. and as for packages....well if they fail to deliver...isn't that theft?

can see people taking the royal mail to the courts,
Wonder if the queen shall make an appearance?
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
So is this strike mainly affecting London? I ask because I haven't had any trouble with deliveries... except the Satoshi Urushihara art book that shipped a while back from YesAsia, who I believe re-ship from West London...
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Yes, they've been having weekly strikes for the last few months which are completely messing up any packages with the misfortune to go through certain London area depots. They aren't advertising these strikes for some reason so most people don't realise they are happening, which is causing a lot of customer service rage at every mail order business unfortunate enough to rely on Royal Mail for their deliveries.

National strikes coming soon (over the Christmas rush period, how nice of them) so I'm sure soon everyone else will be steaming along with those of us in the capital :(

R
 
Rui said:
National strikes coming soon (over the Christmas rush period, how nice of them) so I'm sure soon everyone else will be steaming along with those of us in the capital :(
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Yeah, I can't wait. On the plus side, I guess, it's going to prevent me spending obscene amounts of money because I won't feel confident that anything I order will actually arrive. Maybe I should take a chance and order the first Geass box set before the **** hits the fan...
 
Well, I'm ok for the moment. I dont know if I need anything coming to Xmas from them yet, but I dont shop there too often. Only for specialist stuff, books on How to Draw and the odd electronics, but that's it.

It is silly about the amount of strikes there are. I have a friend in RM who just gets on with the job cuz he needs the money. Not a union member and such, he just wants to get the job done and get payed. I'm not against striking, but there's something wrong with the relationship between the postmen and the management for it to be a regular occurance. Wish it got sorted so there'd be no more. At least amazon dont have to worry about it anymore... just some dodgy delivery. (Not had the experience myself with Home Deliv).
 
Chaz said:
I'm not against striking, but there's something wrong with the relationship between the postmen and the management for it to be a regular occurance.
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Once the current disagreements cause disruption on a national scale, you may find your current tolerance for RM's tactics changes somewhat.
 
They're going on strike again?!

Do these guys even actually do their work anymore?
About time companies and such began using a more reliable courier. Especially during the dreaded Christmas rush period, the perfect time for a strike.
 
Zin5ki said:
Chaz said:
I'm not against striking, but there's something wrong with the relationship between the postmen and the management for it to be a regular occurance.
Click to expand...
Once the current disagreements cause disruption on a national scale, you may find your current tolerance for RM's tactics changes somewhat.
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Well, considering that if I were to post anything like letters, I'd probably have little choice to use RM, so I cant complain about it even if I thought "what's with this s***?! Gimme service!" And unless it's a majorly important package delivery, I'd rather not hire UPS or private delivery companies, so I have to organise pick up, then get charged for it out of pocket.

It's not ignoracne really, but there's not much of a decent variety when it comes to your everyday postal service that will do things on the spot, whenever you'd like it and no fuss. (Not that I'd praise RM's performance substancially).
 
I think that if they want to make a point to their bosses, rather than punishing the public by striking, they should simply not charge the customers but continue to serve them. Ignore customs charges, stuff like that. The company will lose money but the public will benefit. Like how one time I hard of some train workers that rather than striking, simply allowed everyone to travel for free that day. The company lost that day's ticket revenue but the public loved it & supported the workers.
 
The problem seems to be that it's now taking longer to sort / deliver each day's letters and parcels than the eight hours RM staff are paid for, and they're refused overtime pay. So either they work their eight hours and no more, leading the post to stack up and be delivered slower (what's been happening recently) or they work more for no extra wages. I see their point completely - No way should anyone work for nothing, but at the same time this is a very competetive world. They should realise that the most likely result to come out of this is a privatised RM where half of them will be sacked and replaced with part-time non-union migrant workers.
 
Mutsumi said:
I think that if they want to make a point to their bosses, rather than punishing the public by striking, they should simply not charge the customers but continue to serve them. Ignore customs charges, stuff like that. The company will lose money but the public will benefit. Like how one time I hard of some train workers that rather than striking, simply allowed everyone to travel for free that day. The company lost that day's ticket revenue but the public loved it & supported the workers.
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I wish you were in control of them with ideas like that! As is I just flat out can't stand them and don't care if RM goes bust, which isn't really a good attitude to encourage in your customers if you want your job to still be there when the strikes are over. They've given me so much extra work during the day over the last few months and caused so much ill will with our customers. It's completely unfair to punish everyone else just because they can't get their acts together.

R
 
Mutsumi said:
I think that if they want to make a point to their bosses, rather than punishing the public by striking, they should simply not charge the customers but continue to serve them. Ignore customs charges, stuff like that. The company will lose money but the public will benefit. Like how one time I hard of some train workers that rather than striking, simply allowed everyone to travel for free that day. The company lost that day's ticket revenue but the public loved it & supported the workers.
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Because striking is legal, and stealing from the government isn't.
 
ilmaestro said:
Mutsumi said:
I think that if they want to make a point to their bosses, rather than punishing the public by striking, they should simply not charge the customers but continue to serve them. Ignore customs charges, stuff like that. The company will lose money but the public will benefit. Like how one time I hard of some train workers that rather than striking, simply allowed everyone to travel for free that day. The company lost that day's ticket revenue but the public loved it & supported the workers.
Click to expand...
Because striking is legal, and stealing from the government isn't.
Click to expand...
While it's not technically stealing (if they weren't taking any money, what was there to steal?) I imagine the companies in question would get wise to that kind of scheme pretty quickly, and lock any of their premises / vehicles up so that staff couldn't get in.
 
ayase said:
The problem seems to be that it's now taking longer to sort / deliver each day's letters and parcels than the eight hours RM staff are paid for, and they're refused overtime pay.
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According to the guy that interviewed me for a Royal Mail job three weeks ago, you do get overtime pay if you have to work on longer due to a larger workload.



ayase said:
ilmaestro said:
Mutsumi said:
I think that if they want to make a point to their bosses, rather than punishing the public by striking, they should simply not charge the customers but continue to serve them. Ignore customs charges, stuff like that. The company will lose money but the public will benefit. Like how one time I hard of some train workers that rather than striking, simply allowed everyone to travel for free that day. The company lost that day's ticket revenue but the public loved it & supported the workers.
Click to expand...
Because striking is legal, and stealing from the government isn't.
Click to expand...
While it's not technically stealing (if they weren't taking any money, what was there to steal?) I imagine the companies in question would get wise to that kind of scheme pretty quickly, and lock any of their premises / vehicles up so that staff couldn't get in.
Click to expand...


The company therefore has the choice between losing money, or losing money & getting a bad reputation.
 
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