A new (re)Direction?
The UK postal market was fully opened on the 1 January 2006 and there are now 19 licensed operators. Since the start of the year it has been increasingly important to ensure that the services offered to customers are effective in a multi-operator market place.
With this in mind Postcomm, the economic regulator, published a consultation document on the sharing of redirection data in August this year in order to safeguard this vital service. Many of us will have used Royal Mail's redirection service in the past and quite rightly expect that 100% of our mail is redirected to our new address. As there are now a number of operators within the market the need for them to be aware of any redirections will grow as competition moves forward. The hope is that the sharing of this data will mean that all mail, whichever operator it is handled by, will be successfully redirected.
The security of personal data has been a hot topic recently and Postwatch are keen to ensure that redirection data is only shared with those that really need it. You can see the Postwatch response to the consultation here
With this in mind Postcomm, the economic regulator, published a consultation document on the sharing of redirection data in August this year in order to safeguard this vital service. Many of us will have used Royal Mail's redirection service in the past and quite rightly expect that 100% of our mail is redirected to our new address. As there are now a number of operators within the market the need for them to be aware of any redirections will grow as competition moves forward. The hope is that the sharing of this data will mean that all mail, whichever operator it is handled by, will be successfully redirected.
The security of personal data has been a hot topic recently and Postwatch are keen to ensure that redirection data is only shared with those that really need it. You can see the Postwatch response to the consultation here
posted by Anonymous at 2:06 pm
6 Comments:
If an item of mail goes missing how will we know which operator has redirected it? At the moment its all Royal Mail, so they can be blamed but if other operators perform this service how will we know?
The plan is that Royal Mail will continue to run and administer the redirection system but pass on the details needed for a successful redirection to the other operators.
For a customer this will mean that you still fill in the Royal Mail form, which will tell you that this information is been shared, present the necessary identification to Royal Mail and also make payment to Royal Mail.
Once this is done Royal Mail will tell the other operators that the redirection is in place. This means that if another operator offered an end-to-end (postbox-to-letterbox) service they would kow to redirect the mail. At the moment there is no real social end-to-end competition however this move is aimed at preventing any problems arising.
As the customer will have a contract with Royal Mail if a mail piece goes missing their first point of contact will be them. Royal Mail may then pass the query on to the relevant operator. However the sender will know which orperator they used and will be able to contact them as well if they are offering an end-to-end service.
This doesn't answer the question! how will I know who's sent the mail? This is yet adding another spanner to the works and creating more work than is actually needed. There is more opportunity for things to go wrong, which as a customer I do not need.
Apologies that you don't feel your question was answered.
You will know who carried the mail by the indica on the item and therefore who to contact. As Royal Mail are the only social end-to-end operator at the moment they remian the point of contact for the time being.
If you would like to go in to this further or ask any more questions please feel free to email blog@postwatch.co.uk and I will reply promptly.
No I will not know who sent the mail by the indica because I haven't received it yet, it has gone missing don't forget! Wouldn't it be far easier for Royal Mail to handle all redirections? as they do now. This would make monitoring its success far more easier too. I'll say no more on subject.
In order for you to know the item has gone missing you must know it has been sent. If you know it was sent then you would know who sent it, they would know which operator they had used.
Postwatch believe that competition in the postal market will improve the customer experience, not only by offering them choice in the long run but also by Royal Mail becoming a more efficient, customer focussed operator. This need to share redirection data has come about because of the opening of the market.
Royal Mail will not be able to handle all redirections if another licensed operator offers an end-to-end service as that mail will not be theirs to redirect. They will have no contact with it.
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