THE Post Office appears to be going from bad to worse in=20 the delivery of items.=20
Despite all sorts of marketing commitments in the press=20 over the last few months to the effect that delivery times=20 would be measurable, and “accountable”, the entire service=20 appears close to collapse.
I am just one of many businesspeople who sometimes receive=20 personal accounts after they are due for payment. And,=20 mailing payments is just as bad.=20
Some time back I mailed a cheque in payment of medical=20 services. A month later I received a call requesting=20 payment. The cheque was stopped and another cheque was=20 mailed. Fourteen days after it was posted in Midrand, it=20 had still not reached its destination 20km away. At what=20 point does one call “time-out” with this kind of nonsense?
Considering the level of service it’s astonishing the Post=20 Office had the chutzpah to up their rates recently. You’d=20 think they’d get the service adequate at least before=20 having such nerve.
In competition to itself, and as a remedy for tortoise- mail, they introduced Speed Services, the Post Office=20 courier service. I heard two people in the Sandton post=20 office this week, berate the unfortunate person behind the=20 counter for priority mail items which had not been received=20 the day after they were posted.
I experienced this about a month back when an urgent item=20 took two full days for door-to-door delivery in Durban=20 instead of one. I had a mind to refuse to pay, but can you=20 imagine the schlep?
Go into any of several post offices and you’ll find that=20 the Speed Services waybills are behind the counter. So you=20 either butt in on someone else’s transaction and demand=20 one, or wait in line until your turn comes and ask for a=20 form. You then have to rejoin the line after you’ve=20 completed the document. Surely the answer is to have the=20 forms available and clearly signposted to encourage people=20 to complete forms before joining the line.
More and more people and companies are being forced to use=20 private postal and courier services, some of which have=20 proved to be as bad as the Post Office. I’ve fired two in=20 the last year. One is internationally celebrated. For what,=20 only they can know.
There’s opportunity for someone to offer a postal system=20 that really works. Cell phones lit a fire under the bum of=20 the regular Telkom system. It’s time for entrepreneurs to=20 light a similar one under the ponderous butt of the Post=20
Regular stamps are sold at stationers and booksellers, so=20 why can’t vending machines go some of the way to preventing=20 the queuing? If vandalism is a problem, put machines in the=20 post office building, which at least eliminates a lineup=20 during working hours.
There are, these days, some good marketers at the top in=20 SAPO. Perhaps they need to emulate Robert Townsend of Avis=20 car hire fame and get themselves behind the counter on=20 occasion to experience this sort of debacle, first hand.