The modern Post Office is a perfect example of how not to run a business. They’re trying to be all things to all men, and failing dismally to ‘deliver’ (pun intended).
I’ve just wasted the last 15 minutes of my life in a Post Office queue. My fellow ‘wasters’ were either paying money in, getting foreign currency, submitting a passport application, buying travel insurance, requesting broadband, taxing their car, buying a fishing licence, receiving their pension, paying a bill, doing their business banking or buying a phonecard.
Foolishly, I was there to post a letter. Now normally I use the excellent SmartStamp service, but I needed proof of posting for this one, and so I’m forced to witness this shrine to muppetry.
I don’t normally mind when a company expands it’s services – competition is good for the consumer – but not at the expense of it’s core service. The Post Office wants to get as many customers as possible, yet don’t seem to have given much thought to what happens when they actually achieve that. Take for “Recorded Delivery” for example. One of the wasters needed to post a parcel, so he queued up with everyone else, until finally he got to the counter, and then started to fill out the Recorded Delivery form (much to my chagrin). Would it be too much to ask the PO to supply the forms as you enter the queue, and then have pens available (maybe tethered like in the banks) so you can use your queuing time to complete the form, then arrive ready when you get to the counter? has none of the consultation money been spent on a Time & Motion study?
Perhaps they could also supply stickers that people can wear whilst in the queue that denote if they’re going to be ages (I’m here to get a passport / tax my car). If you saw more than one of those, you might as well go home and try again tomorrow.
Of course, whilst all this is going on, we’ve forgotten what the PO should be doing. Who remembers first & second delivery? Now of course, you get one delivery a day (if you’re lucky) and that’s not normally until the afternoon if your residential. When they announced that second delivery would be abandoned, businesses were promised they’d get their mail at 9-am – well our office is on the High Street, and It never arrives before 11. Is this progress?
So what lessons can we learn from this? Well for a start, if you’re building a high-traffic website, then make sure your server (and bandwidth) can cope with a sudden surge in users. Also offer as many services as possible online, and give incentives for doing so.
Of course something which a business owner won’t suffer from is the ability to create a reason for efficiency. This is where the modern PO falls down. In the old days when you had sub-postmasters, their pay was directly linked to the number of customers served. if they were busy, they earned more – the survival of their business depended upon it. Now, most PO staff are employees on a fixed salary. It matters not if they server 5 or 50 people per hour.
“Creating a sense of urgency”. You know i’m sure I’ve read that somewhere before!
In my town post office now you are greeted by a 17″ plasma touch screen with a single button on it which says “print ticket” you then take a seat and wait on the sofas for your number to be called; delicatessen style. Thing is they wait for at least 30 seconds after calling a number of a customer who fell asleep long ago before moving onto the next. The result was about a third of the counter staff were looking aimlessly across the waiting area wondering when the next customer would stand up! madness!