A new service from Royal Mail has the potential to make life a lot easier for small businesses, making it easier for them to send out customer orders – even on a Sunday.
Service Points and Sunday Post
The new service, which is primarily aimed at SMEs and marketplace sellers, will allow customers to drop off pre-paid parcels and letters at service points at their local delivery office – and collect parcels too.
Most of the UK’s 1,200 customer service points open six days a week, but around 100 of the busiest offices are also open on Sundays. This now means that small businesses with access to these will be able to post out orders seven days a week.
The move was welcomed by Mike Cherry, National Chairman of the Federation for Small Businesses. “Small businesses rarely work nine to five, Monday to Friday. They work when they need to – to deliver for their customers. We’ve seen a surge in home based companies who are using the internet to reach new customers all over the world. Many of these businesses rely on the postal infrastructure Royal Mail provides and will welcome this step to being more flexible.”
Accessibility Initiative
This service is just the next step in an initiative to make Royal Mail’s services more flexible and accessible, and follows the recent launch of a new mailshot service also designed with SMEs in mind.
Nick Landon, managing director of Royal Mail parcels, said: “This is great news for our customers. Our focus is always on improving customer convenience and access to our network. Now our Royal Mail Customer Service Points at our local Enquiry Offices are a hub for customers to access all of our time critical, safe and secure delivery services in addition to an already impressive network of post boxes and local Post Offices.
Customers can pick up their online shopping, collect parcels we tried to deliver while they were out, drop off parcels for delivery and obtain proof of posting if they need it, all under one roof.”
Will this service make a difference to your small business? Is it a service you envisage using, particularly on a Sunday? What else could Royal Mail do to make their services more accessible and useful for your small business? Have you turned your back on Royal Mail and chosen other courier services instead? Share your thoughts.
