SOUTH STREET POST BOX
28 April 2008
I don't know whether any reader of this column happens to recall a cartoon from the 1960s in which a publican is standing irately at the bar of his pub, saying to a customer: "How many times am I going to have to tell people the reason I don't stock that beer is that there is no demand for it".
You wouldn't expect to see a cartoon of the same sort today. On the whole, British businesses - especially small businesses - are now highly responsive to customer demand, and genuinely seek to provide what their customers and prospective customers want.
I'm afraid, however, that the same is not yet really true of some of the biggest suppliers of services. A particular case in point is our friend, the Royal Mail.
Across quite a lot of its activities, the Royal Mail is no longer a monopoly - since it is challenged by couriers and parcel delivery firms of various kinds. And, although the Internet has created a huge explosion in home delivery, it has also turned e-mail into a powerful competitor to the old snail-mail.
Whether all of this vast communication actually improves the quality of our lives, I really rather doubt - but it has certainly become a fact of life and one with which the Royal Mail presumably has to wrestle on a daily basis.
So you might expect the Royal Mail to concern itself with retaining customers, and hence with meeting their needs and demands responsively.
But the saga of the post box in South Street, Dorchester has led me to wonder whether this is quite the case.
The story is simple. The post box in South Street was removed. After some correspondence and agitation from various quarters, I was given assurances that it would be replaced in due course. Then the Royal Mail decided to put it somewhere else instead. A popular outcry followed; and - though I am still checking this - I think we are now on the verge of getting it reinstated in a broadly similar place.
The amount of trouble that has had to be caused before the Royal Mail puts the post box roughly where people want it, suggests an organisation that has not yet completely adapted itself to the idea that the customer is king.
But, dear reader, just in case you were in any doubt about the underlying motive, witness a recent conversation between one of my constituents and the Royal Mail about this issue.
The constituent rings up and is delighted to be told that the box will be put roughly where customers want it after all. Then the Royal Mail official at the other end of the phone line adds that it is altogether probable that this will be a very popular location and the box may, therefore, get filled up quickly - too quickly, perhaps, to be emptied on time.
I would say that the spirit of the 1960s is alive and well in the headquarters of the Royal Mail today.
You wouldn't expect to see a cartoon of the same sort today. On the whole, British businesses - especially small businesses - are now highly responsive to customer demand, and genuinely seek to provide what their customers and prospective customers want.
I'm afraid, however, that the same is not yet really true of some of the biggest suppliers of services. A particular case in point is our friend, the Royal Mail.
Across quite a lot of its activities, the Royal Mail is no longer a monopoly - since it is challenged by couriers and parcel delivery firms of various kinds. And, although the Internet has created a huge explosion in home delivery, it has also turned e-mail into a powerful competitor to the old snail-mail.
Whether all of this vast communication actually improves the quality of our lives, I really rather doubt - but it has certainly become a fact of life and one with which the Royal Mail presumably has to wrestle on a daily basis.
So you might expect the Royal Mail to concern itself with retaining customers, and hence with meeting their needs and demands responsively.
But the saga of the post box in South Street, Dorchester has led me to wonder whether this is quite the case.
The story is simple. The post box in South Street was removed. After some correspondence and agitation from various quarters, I was given assurances that it would be replaced in due course. Then the Royal Mail decided to put it somewhere else instead. A popular outcry followed; and - though I am still checking this - I think we are now on the verge of getting it reinstated in a broadly similar place.
The amount of trouble that has had to be caused before the Royal Mail puts the post box roughly where people want it, suggests an organisation that has not yet completely adapted itself to the idea that the customer is king.
But, dear reader, just in case you were in any doubt about the underlying motive, witness a recent conversation between one of my constituents and the Royal Mail about this issue.
The constituent rings up and is delighted to be told that the box will be put roughly where customers want it after all. Then the Royal Mail official at the other end of the phone line adds that it is altogether probable that this will be a very popular location and the box may, therefore, get filled up quickly - too quickly, perhaps, to be emptied on time.
I would say that the spirit of the 1960s is alive and well in the headquarters of the Royal Mail today.
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