Retail businesses have had a tough time of it recently and it’s not getting better any time soon. Business rates, interest rates, the punitive cost of energy – they’ve all caused mayhem. The last thing firms need now is an artificial set of obstacles to the safe and timely delivery of their goods to customers – but that’s what they’ve been subjected to recently.
Strikes are nothing new for postal workers. But until the summer of 2022, national industrial action hadn’t taken place since 2009 – and that dispute was over modernisation plans.
The strikes over the last year have been aligned with the broader desire, some say need, for pay rises to help postal workers better cope with the rapid cost of living increase.
At the time of writing – the start of February another strike has been called for 16 and 17 February.
Royal Mail’s offer of a 9% pay rise over 18 months, an offer to develop a new profit share scheme for employees and making voluntary redundancy terms more generous was countered by the CWU and then rejected by Royal Mail. Talks are said to be on-going. In the meantime, Royal Mail has reportedly lost £200m over the industrial action.
But with Royal Mail suffering not only strike action but also, a cyberattack which shut down all international deliveries, firms despatching goods have been looking for alternatives. However, as recent news confirm, the choices aren’t great.
Last November, Citizens Advice published its latest league table for delivery companies’ performance and Evri – formerly Hermes – came last for the second year running. It scored an overall 1.75 out of a maximum score of 5. Yodel was next with a score of 2, DPD came third with 2.25, Amazon Logistics 2.75 and Royal Mail with 3 out of 5. No firm scored 4 or 5 out of 5. The survey of 8421 adults was run online by Optimum Research in October 2022 who’d received a parcel in the preceding month.
Little improved in terms of standards over the last quarter of 2022 – Evri was forced to apologise for the non-delivery of countless parcels across the country. Evri said that staff shortages – a lack of drivers, Royal Mail strikes along with bad weather made matters worse.
But what can be done? Last July – inews reported that firms that deliver parcels are to face tougher Ofcom regulations that aim to ensure complaints are taken seriously and the disabled are treated better.
Ofcom confirmed then that the measures first detailed December 2021 will come into effect from April 2023. If little changes Ofcom has said that fines or tighter regulation could be on the way if it fails to see “substantial improvements” in parcel firms’ complaints handling and customer service across the industry.
As to what this means, inews explained that penalties of up to 10% of an offending company’s turnover could be applied but that they would be “appropriate and proportionate” for each individual case.
Of course, none of this helps beleaguered retailers who carry the responsibility for failed deliveries or lost or damaged items (in most circumstances). Indeed, Citizens Advice says that its online advice, if something you ordered hasn’t arrived, had been viewed almost 211,000 times in the 12 months since the last report was published.
It doesn’t help retail that the law places the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of retailers. All firms can do is hope that Royal Mail finds a way through the current impasse and that delivery firms manage to up their game.