Royal Mail strikes (Aug/Sept) - what plans are you putting into place?

BrightIdeas

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Dec 2, 2009
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If you use Royal Mail, what plans are you putting into place for shipping parcels?

Looks like there's going to be a fair bit of disruption and they've said they can't guarantee delivery by 9am or 1pm next day for items sent during periods of industrial action.

We use only Royal Mail normally via Click and Drop, but planning to use Evri via Shopify Shipping during this time too. Will also be processing orders as quickly as possible and using Royal Mail Tracked 24 instead of Royal Mail Tracked 48. The problem is that we don't have a business account with Evri (and Shopify Shipping does not include collections) and so we need to take the parcels to the parcelshop ourselves and the cut-off is 12pm (early!) for next day delivery.

I'm also not quite confident about how reliable Evri is.

What's everyone else doing?!
 

DanH

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  • Jan 5, 2010
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    If you use Royal Mail, what plans are you putting into place for shipping parcels?

    Looks like there's going to be a fair bit of disruption and they've said they can't guarantee delivery by 9am or 1pm next day for items sent during periods of industrial action.

    We use only Royal Mail normally via Click and Drop, but planning to use Evri via Shopify Shipping during this time too. Will also be processing orders as quickly as possible and using Royal Mail Tracked 24 instead of Royal Mail Tracked 48. The problem is that we don't have a business account with Evri (and Shopify Shipping does not include collections) and so we need to take the parcels to the parcelshop ourselves and the cut-off is 12pm (early!) for next day delivery.

    I'm also not quite confident about how reliable Evri is.

    What's everyone else doing?!

    We do B2B and B2C. With B2C I'm simply removing first class post and next day delivery from the websites, we don't get too many of them anyway as most of our trade is 'free' 2nd class delivery so the customer's expectations aren't that high! As to B2B, we don't use Royal Mail so not really affected.
     
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    14Steve14

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    May 18, 2010
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    Dorset
    www.railwayscenics.com
    We have kept all the royal mail postage options from the website but have added a message on pages to explain that there may be a delay in posting orders. The last thing we want is our customers orders stuck in the usual backlog that Royal mail create in this sort of situation, especially if it gets like the problems they had at easter. Talking to a postman and someone from Parcelforce, they have both been told to prioritise new post, which will create the backlog over the bank holiday weekend

    Depending on how it goes this time we may do the same when the next action is to take place, or we may change it, but the next strike will not last so long or be at a busy time.
     
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    Elliott Coleman

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  • Oct 2, 2017
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    Just put a message at the top of the website informing customers of the strike and probable. Also removed all Special Delivery options.

    Our system is integrated with RM via an API so it's really not easy to suddenly switch to an alternative and not a chance in hell I'd use Evri.

    I'm afraid customers are just going to have to accept the delays or shop elsewhere.
     
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    We managed our clients through the RM strikes. Companies like ours were able to directly inject mail and parcels into the sorting depots. But the delays are still there.

    I know of a business that is at its peak season now and over 2000 special delivery shipments have been lost in the chaos. But this is not a trend we are seeing everywhere. Most are delayed but arrive eventually.

    Just a reminder that both Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide have further planned Industrial Action scheduled for Thursday 8th and Friday 9th September. Hold on tight.
     
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    Elliott Coleman

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  • Oct 2, 2017
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    Same as before. Just informing customers of potential delays.

    We'll never use the like of Herpes or whatever they call themselves these days and it's just too time consuming and expensive to make a big change to another courier for a few days of strike.

    If it continues then we'll have to make that decision at the time. If we do switch to another courier there will be no going back to RM so they had better get their act together or they loose a £40k/year customer
     
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    DanH

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  • Jan 5, 2010
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    OK, just had this from RM:
    The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has called on its members who collect, sort and deliver parcels and letters to take further national strike action on the following dates:

    • Friday 30 September 2022 and Saturday 1 October 2022
    • Thursday 13th October 2022
    • Thursday 20th October 2022
    • Tuesday 25th October 2022
    • Monday 28th November 2022
    Further dates have also been announced by the CWU for functional strike action which impacts parts of our operation on the following:

    • Processing, Distribution, International, Collections, Admin: 3rd, 9th, 15th, 24th November and 1st December 2022
    • Delivery: 4th, 10th, 16th, 25th November and 2nd December 2022
    • Network: 2nd, 8th, 14th, 23rd, 30th November 2022
    Royal Mail is ready to talk further with the CWU to try and avert industrial action. We’re sorry this strike action is likely to cause you some disruption. We will be working to get our services back to normal as quickly as possible.

    Royal Mail has well-developed contingency plans, which we will be updating over the next few days to respond to the new dates, but we cannot fully replace the daily efforts of our frontline workforce. We’ll be doing what we can to keep services running, but you should expect significant disruption on dates when strike action is taking place.

    There’s more information online at royalmail.com/latest-news but we wanted to provide you with some of the important information, directly.

    Parcel and Letter Deliveries

    On days when strike action is taking place:

    • We will deliver as many Special Delivery Guaranteed parcels as possible. We will prioritise and deliver as many Special Delivery Guaranteed items as resources allow. We cannot however guarantee delivery by 9am or 1pm next day, so we’re making changes to our delivery guarantee for items posted from Thursday 29 September, up to and including items sent on Saturday 1 October 2022. Customers will not be able to claim for delays to items during this period. Further information around how this impacts future strike dates will be communicated closer to the dates.
    • We will deliver as many Tracked 24 parcels as possible including prioritising delivery of Covid-19 test kits and medical prescription items wherever possible. However, significantly reduced resources mean there will be a delay to some Tracked 24 items during strike action.
    • On strike days, we will not be delivering letters (with exception of Special Delivery)
    Other items posted the day before, during strike action or on the days after any strike action will be subject to delay.

    Business Collections

    We won’t be able to provide a collection service to business customers on days when strikes are taking place. We’re asking customers to post before strike days or hold items until after strike action finishes.

    Business collections will resume on the next working day after a national strike day.

    We are unable to accept bookings for additional or one-off collections on the day of strike action or for the next working day

    Delivery Offices and Customer Service Points

    Delivery Offices and Customer Service Points will be closed on days when strike action is taking place. Customers will not be able to collect or drop off items on these dates.

    If you usually drop off bags of items to Customer Service Points, you can take them to a Post Office branch or to one of c1700 Collect+ sites which will accept Royal Mail items on days when strikes are taking place. You can check your nearest available Collect+ drop off here.

    Delivery Offices and Customer Service Points will reopen the day after strike action has finished.

    Post Offices

    Post Offices will be open as usual, collections by Royal Mail from Post Offices will be limited on the days of strike action. Customers can still collect Local Collect items at Post Offices on strike days.

    Getting services back to normal after strike action

    We want to get your services back to normal as quickly as possible after any strike action. We'll be increasing our network capacity and using additional resources to assist with this.

    Collections and deliveries will resume the day after strike action finishes, including accelerating the delivery of NHS and healthcare letters, and critical Government mailings in the days following strike action.

    The first set of bullet point dates I can deal with as it is basically means there will be no business collection or deliveries on that day.

    The second set of 'further dates', to me, is a bit more nebulous -am I to assume that specifically business collections won't happen on the 3rd, 9th, 15th, 24th November and 1st December 2022 and that specifically deliveries to my customers won't happen 4th, 10th, 16th, 25th November (already mentioned in the previous list) and 2nd December 2022? If so then my paper diary is running out of space to put these entries..!
     
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    In an update to the Royal Mail Strikes, We are being told to prepare orders ready for collection. They are trying to send a temp workforce to collect as much as possible, but this will not be processed until the day after the strike day.

    Bristol's main sorting office had a nightmare at the end of August processing products in the wrong order which meant a lot of delays to products.

    But as these strikes are going on, our customers are seemingly accepting as they have no choice.
     
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