Wide Variation In Customer Experience In Urban Post Offices
New research carried out by MORI jointly on behalf of Postwatch and Postcomm shows wide variations in customers' experiences of urban post offices. Researchers visited over 300 of the largest post offices in urban areas and assessed the whole post office experience including: queuing; quality of advice (including product knowledge, proactive questioning and customer handling); the post office environment, including availability of information and services both inside and out; facilities for the disabled. As a part of the exercise, researchers also sent and received packages to assess receipt, transit time and damage. Main findings include:
New research carried out by MORI jointly on behalf of Postwatch and Postcomm shows wide variations in customers' experiences of urban post offices. Researchers visited over 300 of the largest post offices in urban areas and assessed the whole post office experience including: queuing; quality of advice (including product knowledge, proactive questioning and customer handling); the post office environment, including availability of information and services both inside and out; facilities for the disabled. As a part of the exercise, researchers also sent and received packages to assess receipt, transit time and damage. Main findings include:
- The post office experience, both internally and externally, is a positive one for the majority. Post office staff are highly regarded in terms of their attitude towards customers (being polite, clear, calm and efficient)
- One in five mystery shoppers had to wait in queues of more than five minutes before being served. One in ten waited for more than ten minutes. Nationally, 58% of counters in post offices are open and accepting customers; the remainder are not
- Facilities provided for disabled customers are not standardised within the network. Some post offices cater very well, others do not
- Post offices that are directly managed by Post Office Limited are more customer oriented than franchise post offices. This covers: exterior and interior presentation, information available on products and services, facilities for disabled customers, customer handling performance and accuracy, quality and completeness of advice
- Two-thirds of directly managed staff probed for additional information in order to offer the most suitable product or service; the same was true of only 36% of staff in franchise post offices
- First Class is the most frequently recommended service to send packages. However, had the customer advisors been more proactive in their questioning, it would have been clear that Special Delivery should have been advised in many cases
- Of those packages sent by First Class post, 71% arrived at their destination the next day
- A significant minority of packages (22%) was left unattended at the recipient's house; this includes packages that were left on a doorstep and elsewhere
Technical details
Mystery shoppers posed as customers and undertook a variety of scenarios. These involved sending parcels and requesting information on a range of services.
Visits were conducted between 18 and 28 October 2004 and started before 2pm. In total 302 directly-managed and franchised urban post offices were visited throughout the UK from a total of around 1,200.
Data have been subsequently weighted by region and type of post office to reflect the national profile of urban post offices.
No sub-post offices were included in the research.
