Trials & Tribulations - UK Postal Services
Well, it has been an interesting week that’s for sure….frustrating may be a better word for both us and for some of you as members.
Royal Mail has been putting up their prices over the last couple of years quite substantially, which has been having a significant effect on small businesses that rely on the post as part of their business proposition. In fact, since we began Kopi - the Royal Mail now charge us 40% more for posting your box each month than when we first started.
We’ve always tried to absorb these costs without affecting your pricing, and that led to our decision in late February to try switching to UK Mail to deliver the boxes. This is a company that still uses Royal Mail to deliver the “last mile” of the post (very similar to the way BT deliver the last bit of cabling into your home no matter which broadband ADSL provider you use), but have their own network for handling everything before then. They work out cheaper than Royal Mail and from what we had been told, had no drop in service level quality.
Unfortunately, we were wrong in believing this.
A variety of issues have been coming to light about the UK Mail service, most notably:
- Delays - despite boxes leaving our fulfilment house on the 11th of the month, delivery has taken up to 7 working days for some members (they should land around the 14th of every month).
- Damages - some boxes haven’t been arriving in the pristine condition we try and enforce.
- Lost - we’ve had a fair amount of boxes go missing or reporting as not being arrived (which could be related to the delay’s). In some cases this is because UK mail have been seen tying boxes together from the same postcode region so some people have received other members boxes because they happen to live in the same “region”.
We really would like to offer our apologies for any of our members this has affected (luckily a good percentage of you have not had these issues), and that we will correct and rectify every single issue. If you have any of the above problems, please do contact us right away at [email protected] (title your email POSTAL ISSUES)
From next month, we are going back to Royal Mail for every single order. No question about it. We pride ourselves on top quality service and product at every stage of the journey and despite the increase in pricing, we believe this is best for our members.
Here’s to a much better May and thank you very much for understanding.
The Kopi team (Phil, Julie, Jim, Sara, and Geoff)
3 Responses to “Trials & Tribulations - UK Postal Services”
Your quick response to my complaint that my order had never arrived was excellent and demonstrated that your customer service, as opposed to your carrier, was beyond reproach.
The writer Hazlitt summed up your dilemna nicely-” It is a mistake to pay too much for a product(or service) , but a greater one to pay too little, for the item you buy for the lower price will be incapable of fulfilling the need”- or something close to that.
The virtual service provider, sadly, is only as good as the real delivery person who makes the drop. Let’s hope the Post Office can reverse the problem for you.
I’ve not had a problem in service. It arrived a day later than usual. I barely made my coffee fix without it!! On a more serious note, other than that, It wasn’t so much of a big deal and am still incredibly happy with the condition it arrived in. I appreciate that you’ve got to the bottom of the problem and have already begun rectifying it. It only goes on to prove even more what a dedicated company you are. Thanks.