WHOOAAHHH, serious post alert!!!
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20081211/tuk-posties-told-to-walk-at-4mph-6323e80.html
So Royal Mail/Consignia/The Post Office or whatever it calls itself these days is trying to get its staff to work even faster.
Unfortunately, the only measurable result I can see come from this course of action is more items being 'lost in the post'.
Working in the charity world, I hear many a horror story when it comes to mailing things in bulk. Fellow fundraisers speak of missing out on donations from entire parts of the country because appeal letters sent to donors living in those areas simply never arrive, we're talking 1,000s of letters here. Letters that have been paid for out of meagre charity budgets. The damage this sort of thing does to charity income is astounding. Bags of undelivered appeal letters have been discovered discarded in tips.
It's standard charity practice to remove a donor from your database if you receive any returned mail marked as 'gone away' or 'refused' without a handwritten note or message. If the donor's new address can't be found, you're simply wasting money by sending letters to their old address.
However, many cases have been reported where people removed from a database for this reason have called the charity to ask why they haven't received anything from them of late. They never moved, they never refused to accept the letter (when do people actually get the opportunity to do this anyway?). Most of the letters that get returned in this way don't appear to have been seen by any recipient. They have a sticker with 'gone away' ticked, sometimes a date, occasionally a staff number, but very seldom a hand written 'not at this address'.
The simple fact is that items are being returned in this way because it saves RM/C/TPO work delivering them. Many charities are only removing donors from their databases after receiving 2 or three of these 'gone away' letters.
Charities are losing out on thousands, possibly even millions, of vital pounds because of the pressure put on postal staff to deliver items they simply can't manage.
If things continue like this these problems are only going to get much worse.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20081211/tuk-posties-told-to-walk-at-4mph-6323e80.html
So Royal Mail/Consignia/The Post Office or whatever it calls itself these days is trying to get its staff to work even faster.
Unfortunately, the only measurable result I can see come from this course of action is more items being 'lost in the post'.
Working in the charity world, I hear many a horror story when it comes to mailing things in bulk. Fellow fundraisers speak of missing out on donations from entire parts of the country because appeal letters sent to donors living in those areas simply never arrive, we're talking 1,000s of letters here. Letters that have been paid for out of meagre charity budgets. The damage this sort of thing does to charity income is astounding. Bags of undelivered appeal letters have been discovered discarded in tips.
It's standard charity practice to remove a donor from your database if you receive any returned mail marked as 'gone away' or 'refused' without a handwritten note or message. If the donor's new address can't be found, you're simply wasting money by sending letters to their old address.
However, many cases have been reported where people removed from a database for this reason have called the charity to ask why they haven't received anything from them of late. They never moved, they never refused to accept the letter (when do people actually get the opportunity to do this anyway?). Most of the letters that get returned in this way don't appear to have been seen by any recipient. They have a sticker with 'gone away' ticked, sometimes a date, occasionally a staff number, but very seldom a hand written 'not at this address'.
The simple fact is that items are being returned in this way because it saves RM/C/TPO work delivering them. Many charities are only removing donors from their databases after receiving 2 or three of these 'gone away' letters.
Charities are losing out on thousands, possibly even millions, of vital pounds because of the pressure put on postal staff to deliver items they simply can't manage.
If things continue like this these problems are only going to get much worse.
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