Consumer

When it comes to using mail, consumer habits are changing. While the number of letters sent has declined, there has been an increase in the volume of parcels.  This is a direct consequence of the impact of the growing use of email and online retailing.

Meeting consumers’ changing needs

It is very easy to send a letter or packet. Royal Mail collects six days a week from 115,000 post boxes and around 11,800 Post Office branches.We continue to look at ways to respond to changing consumer needs. Some of the solutions we have put in place include:

• Introducing dedicated Redirection sorting areas into our delivery offices so that letters and packets always get to the customer's new address
• Keeping around 600 of our busiest enquiry offices open until 8pm on Wednesdays and later on Saturdays to give customers more flexibility to collect items
• Extending our tracking services to enable customers to monitor the progress of their item's journey through our network to their door.

New initiatives to help consumers

We will continue to look at new solutions as we respond to changing customer demands.

A great example is our ‘Delivery to Neighbour’ initiative, through which we leave packages and parcels with a neighbour when customers are not at home. The scheme is achieving very high satisfaction ratings. We are considering further options for applying Delivery to Neighbour across the UK based on the results of the trial.