I use Royal Mail's special delivery service both personally and professionally, with items that need to be received within a certain time frame. It's not a great time to be reviewing this, with ongoing post strikes, but I'll disregard these when giving my opinion.
what is special delivery?
Special delivery is a service offered by Royal Mail to guarantee delivery of your item by 1pm the next day. They guarantee that this will occur, or your money will be refunded. At an extra cost, it can also be used to guarantee a delivery on a saturday too.
Costs
The cheapest price for a special delivery service is £4.95, which is quite expensive. This allows for up to £500 compensation if the package is lost or damaged, to increase the compensation cover for a package of the same size, the price increases up to £7.40 for £2500 compensation. The price also increases, as you'd expect, with an increase in size/weight of the package. The top price being £24.10 for a 10kg package with maximum compensation.
How does it work?
You can log on to the royal mail website and work out the postage online, or takeyour package to your local post office. They will weigh your package and confirm the price and arrange the delivery. You will be given a unique number that you can use to 'track and trace' your item via their website, to check delivery. Within 6 days, the signature of the person that has signed for the package will be uploaded and you are able to see this.
My experience
I've had a mixed experience with this service. Alot of the time I have found it to be reliable and things are delivered the next day. Other times, I have been told by the recipient that the package has not been received by 1pm, or not received at all. When these situation arise, it's quite hard to speak with someone about this. The phone number to call is automated and you have that frustrating (and embarassing!) battle with the voice recognition software to get it to interpret your package number correctly. Other times, when people are denying receipt I have logged on to view the signature and none has been uploaded - if they have alot to deliver to one address they get a signature for the batch - which doesn't help you when you are trying to confirm who has signed for it.I can't help feeling that the service should be better for the prices that are charged, and if there was a serious competitor, the service would be the better for it.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
I have been let down by Special Delivery in the past - I have not had an item go missing but I have experienced it not arriving within the time specified. It really does need an overhaul.
Advantages: Packages upto 5kg next day /double money back. Tracking on EVERY PARCEL. Disadvantages: Not many depots so people have problems receiving goods.
rajatkhan 18.12.2007 (18.12.2007)
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